WEST BANK (Dispatches) – About 70,000 5.56 mm bullets and 70 grenades have been stolen from a Zionist regime military base in the Golan Heights, the military reported.
Police confirmed that the Tznobar base was broken into and robbed of weaponry. Several people have been arrested in connection with the case.
According to inventory counts carried out at the base during the night, about 70,000 5.56 mm bullets and 70 grenades were taken from the site, among other things.
The military reported that “The circumstances of the theft are being investigated, and at the end of the investigation, the findings will be handed over to the Military Advocate General for examination.”
Thousands of weapons and munitions are stolen from the Zionist regime’s military every year, official data shows. Between the years 2013 and 2020, 84 Tavor rifles, 32 machine guns, 527 grenades, 37 hand grenades, 65 plastic explosives, 47 LAW rockets, 321 explosive devices, over 152,000 5.56 mm bullets and 323 M16 rifles were stolen.
One of the areas where many cases of munitions and military equipment theft are recorded is the South Al-Khalil Hills. The Zionist regime claims the ammunition is usually stolen by Bedouins living in nearby encampments.
Additionally, the regime is concerned that Palestinians or Bedouins will exploit security breaches to carry out retaliatory attacks.
In 2017, a military base in southern parts of the occupied territories was robbed of 33 M-16 submachine guns. According to the investigation, brothers Avishai and Lior Itach, both of whom had criminal records and were employed on the base as renovation contractors, cut through the locks on the base’s armory doors, switched them out for new locks and painted them to conceal the crime. They later sold the guns to organized crime groups.
Two years later, the Be’er Sheva District Court sentenced Avishai to two years and seven months imprisonment; his brother Lior received a two-year suspended sentence as part of a plea bargain.