Mayor of Kiryat Gat, Aviram Dahari, sent a letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben Gvir, and Minister of Education, Yoav Kish, demanding "to immediately set up a practical training program – as part of the lessons learned from October 7th and civil preparations for guarding our homes.”
For this reason, he demands "training high school students in the use of small and long arms, as part of the civil preparations for guarding our homes".
He also writes that "Kiryat Gat would like to be the pioneer in the implementation of this basic training practice. I would appreciate it if you would give this matter your immediate attention – and the sooner the better."
Since the morning of October 7th [the day of the murderous Hamas attack on southern Israel] there has been a sharp rise in the number of applications for gun licenses. The Ministry of National Security has been required to respond to hundreds of thousands of inquiries, including by establishing a special emergency response center in the Ministry, and an additional emergency center in the Knesset.
However, as discussions took place in the Knesset, it became evident that some cases for weapons licenses were approved after very short telephone interviews, and that in some cases the interviewers were people who were not trained for this responsibility.