The Israeli Defense Forces are considering distributing anti-tank missiles to settlers in the occupied West Bank to help them fend off a future attack like the Oct. 7 Hamas-led massacre near Gaza, the newspaper Haaretz reports.
Arming civilian security groups in isolated West Banks settlements and those near Palestinian villages with heavy weaponry would theoretically help settlers stop an attack like that of Oct. 7, when terrorists arrived in cars and on motorbikes — though, notably, not tanks.IDF commanders have not opposed the idea, first put forward by right-wing members of the Israeli government, Haaretz reported. The plan is now on the desks of senior security officials awaiting approval.
Tensions have been growing in the West Bank since the Hamas attack in the south, and the IDF has handed out thousands of pistols, M-16 automatic rifles, and even machine guns to settler groups in the occupied territory.
Under the plan, missiles would be distributed to commanders of the security squads who’d have to secure the weapons in special storage spaces. Israeli soldiers and settlers said the automatic weapons they had on Oct. 7 were not easily able to stop the cars that brought terrorists to the kibbutzes en masse.
Even as attacks on settlers in the occupied West Bank have risen, Israelis have already been concerned about growing violence by the settlers themselves.
As Israel’s top general in the West Bank, Yehuda Fox, cracked down on extremist settlers, Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar sent a letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other government ministers saying that sharp criticism against Fox “may create a concrete threat to the general’s life and allow him to be harmed.”
Membership in so-called regional defense battalions has grown fivefold since the war in Gaza started, as accounts increase of settlers serving in them assaulting and threatening Palestinians, Haaretz reported earlier this month.
“Handing out missiles to settlers would “take settler militias to a new level, embolden them to be even more violent and spell further disaster for Palestinians,” said Mairav Zonszein, senior Israel analyst with the International Crisis Group.
“Since the Palestinians don't have tanks, the anti-tank missiles would largely be used for blowing up Palestinian homes and more,” the Palestine and MENA Information Center wrote on X.