26,000 bullets for automatic rifles were stolen from an Israeli military base near the border with Egypt
Yesterday, the Israeli army spokesman announced that a large amount of ammunition had been stolen from a military shelter at the “Tseelim” base in the Negev, in southern Israel, while the media reported that the theft included 30,000 bullets for M-16 automatic rifles. The Israeli “Channel 14”, quoting security and military agencies, confirmed that the number is about 26,000 bullets.
The spokesman added that after the theft was reported this morning, the police and military police opened a joint investigation.
A short while ago, “Channel 14” on Israeli television said that as part of an operation carried out by the Israeli General Security Service in cooperation with the police, the military police and the Israeli army, two suspects were arrested, after the two, who are from the Negev Bedouin, stormed an Israeli army base in “Tse’elim” last night and stole tens of thousands of ammunition from a cache in the base, and they were arrested last night (between Tuesday and Wednesday), after the raid damaged the base’s fence and the structure of the shelter.
Ammunition thefts from Israeli army bases are frequent. Last October, 30,000 bullets for rifles and machine guns were stolen from the Givati Brigade’s “Sde Teman” military base in the Negev.
At the beginning of 2021, more than 93,000 bullets of 5.56 mm caliber were stolen from the Israeli army’s national training base near Kibbutz “Tseilim”. This is considered one of the largest thefts of ammunition in the history of the army, especially in such a large military base, which has witnessed thefts of weapons and military equipment in the last decade.
According to a report published by Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper last year, the thefts of ammunition, as well as weapons, are repeated despite the monitoring of millions of shekels in order to guard military bases, and that they constitute a source of arming Palestinian factions in the West Bank as well as criminal organizations in the Arab community inside Israel, along with Smuggling weapons and ammunition across the borders with Egypt and Jordan.
The newspaper added that there is no serious dealing by the Israeli authorities with and prevention of these thefts, “despite the spread of huge quantities of weapons in the hands of the factions, and they are mainly used against the Israeli occupation forces.”
And the newspaper added, “The Israeli police surrendered long ago to the Arab community (society), and in order to meet this challenge there is a need for a real revolution in the field of internal security, and this means the formation of a new police apparatus, and nothing less than that … and this requires the allocation of billions There are many annual pilgrimages, but then it is also not certain that a complete solution to this threat can be reached.
According to information, the theft of 93,000 5.56-caliber bullets from the central warehouse in the “National Training Center” was carried out with the help of parties inside the thieves’ military base.