The Israeli authorities said on Monday they arrested a ring that was smuggling weapons from Israel to the Palestinian Territories.
A police spokesperson said an investigation team of Israeli military, police and Shin Bet security service arrested 21 people suspected of running a weapon smuggling ring in which ammunition and gun parts were stolen from military bases and sold on the black market.
Some of those suspects were indicted on Monday, while others were being kept in custody before being charged in the near future, police added.
The investigation, dubbed “Brothers in Arms,” was launched when police officers stopped last December, a car that drove through a checkpoint from Israel into the southern West Bank and found a large amount of ammunition inside.
The police uncovered that the ring included soldiers, Israeli civilians and Palestinian citizens who come from the Bedouin community in the Negev Desert.
The soldiers who were part of the ring would steal ammunition and gun parts from their bases and then easily move the stolen goods and hand them over to their co-conspirators who would then sell the bullets and weapon components to Palestinians in the West Bank.
The investigation found that the soldiers stole large quantities of ammunition from the military and even stole working gun parts and then replaced the weapons' original parts with replicas manufactured in the West Bank.
The police uncovered that the originals were sold at a price of hundreds or thousands of shekels per unit and that both Israeli citizens and Palestinians purchased the stolen goods.
Meanwhile, the Israeli security forces foiled an attempt to smuggle a stock of 4,000 bullets through the Meitar checkpoint. Investigators believe that this incident and the weapons trafficking ring are linked.
