Roughly 30 army weapons were stolen from an IDF armory on a base in southern Israel this past Saturday.
Police and IDF units are conducting searches of the surrounding area to locate the weapons and apprehend the thieves responsible for the break-in.
Southern Command Chief General Eyal Zamir formed an investigatory taskforce to track down the stolen arms and bring those responsible to justice. The IDF’s military police are conducting a parallel investigation into how the heist managed to succeed.
Last week, in a separate incident, a gang of weapons thieves managed to break into the Tzelim army base in southern Israel and steal a cutting-edge – and expensive – thermal vision device. The thieves managed to escape with the device.
Regavim spokesperson Amihai Yogev, who has worked for years to track and combat theft by Arab gangs in southern Israel, said the recent string of break-ins is a testimony to the growing audacity of the gangs.
“This last theft shows us once again how arrogant these gangs of thieves are and how they strike fear into the IDF soldiers who are prevented from taking action against them.”