Death of unarmed off-duty serviceman prompts shift in long standing policy
[Jerusalem] – The Israeli army’s Chief of Staff, Gen. Gadi Eizenkot, has changed the army’s policy regarding off-duty soldiers carrying weapons.
The order follows the killing of an unarmed Israeli off-duty serviceman in a stabbing attack in a West Bank Jewish community and comes after four months of unending stabbings by Palestinians against Israelis.
Soldiers and police carrying assault rifles and pistols are a very common sight at transport terminals, at cafés and on high streets in Israel. Most of the time this personnel is in uniform; some combat soldiers can be seen traveling to or from home in civilian clothing with a weapon – a sight that often alarms visitors to the country.
Until now standing orders have been that a soldier leaving his or her base for longer than three days must leave their service weapon in the armory. Eizenkot’s orders reverse this longstanding policy.
“Combat soldiers on leave will go home with their guns,” a spokesperson for the army confirmed to The Media Line.
Staff-Sergeant Tuvia Yanai Weissman, 21, was killed in an attack at a supermarket in the Sha’ar Binyamin Industrial Zone by two Palestinian teenagers carrying knives.
Unarmed and out of uniform, Weissman, a dual Israeli/US citizen, was shopping with his wife and newborn baby at the time.
The soldier, from the 50th Battalion of the Nahal Brigade, intervened when he heard the attack taking place and died in hospital from stab wounds he received as a result. A second Israeli, 36, was also wounded in the incident.
Umar Rimawi and Iham Sabah, the two attackers, both aged 14 and from Beitunia near Ramallah, were shot and wounded by an armed Israeli civilian at the site.
Weissman’s death comes several months after the Mayor of Jerusalem, Nir Barkat, urged civilians owning licensed weapons to carry their arms at all times. “I don’t have good news for people that are carrying knives. If you carry a knife and you want to kill… you won’t go back home,” the mayor said.
It is extremely difficult to acquire a gun license in Israel. The regulations are strict and intended to “make it very hard to get a gun,” according to the Interior Ministry official in charge of licenses. Israelis living in the West Bank or working in security are among the few civilians allowed to possess a weapon. For soldiers traveling to their homes in the West Bank this meant, that like Weissman, they were unarmed while civilians around them might be bearing arms.
“On the one hand it’s good that there are security forces with guns everywhere because we don’t know where an attacks is going to happen,” Itai, a young Israeli who recently finished his three years of service, and following IDF policy is not authorized to speak to the press, said.
But on the other hand, whereas soldiers, thanks to their training, are generally considered more trustworthy with weapons than mere civilians, and know when to open fire and when not to, there’s still risk, Itai said, in conversation with The Media Line. Thefts and weapons-related accidents were one reason the Israeli army has always been strict about firearms being taken home according to Itai, a combat soldier who served most of his obligatory IDF service in the West Bank.
Service weapons used in suicides have also prompted the army to severely restrict the ability of a soldier to take a firearm home.
In recent months, as the violence has worn on, the IDF’s rigidity appears to have relaxed.
Soldiers carrying weapons in non-operational areas were previously under orders to remove the weapon’s magazine but have now been allowed to load their weapons, according to Itai.
“I don’t know if there is an official rule change but in the last months, ever since the terrorist attacks started, almost all the soldiers I see have magazines on the gun,” Itai observed.
The announcement by the Chief of Staff is the second time in a week that Eizenkot has spoken out about soldier’s use of weapons. Last week, at a high school in Bat Yam. A tel Aviv bedroom community, he explained that if a soldier’s life was not under immediate threat, it was not necessary for them to shoot and kill attackers.
He came under fire from the most right-wing Israeli ministers following his remark that “there were places with a 13-year-old girl holding scissors or a knife, and there’s a barrier between her and the soldiers. I wouldn’t want to see a soldier opening fire and emptying a (rifle) magazine on such a girl.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu finally supported this position in Sunday’s cabinet meeting.