They seem to have no end weapons theft inside Israeli military bases. Only in 2017 the base in Tzeelim, in the Negev desert, he has suffered more than fifty rifle thefts, ammunition, explosives and even some military vehicles. According to Israeli intelligence, behind these actions there are gangs of Bedouins who enter the IDF training centers undisturbed disguised as soldiers. The Israeli administration said it was "very concerned about these thefts of arms which could end up in the hands not only of criminals but also of groups affiliated with international jihadism".
To counter these gangs of "desert raiders", the army ministerial committee approved a law last January bill which would dramatically increase prison sentences for those caught stealing weapons from IDF bases.
“Those who steal weapons use them for crime and terrorism and constitute a direct danger to the safety of citizens”, argued Anat Berko, member of the Likud and promoter of the Bill.
Millions of shekels have therefore been allocated to the armed forces to prevent this disturbing wave of thefts. Some special units of the border police have been operating undercover for a few months now (Yamas) they began to dismantle the criminal network. According to the Israeli newspaper The Times of Israel, arrests take place almost every night in the desert area around Beer-Sheva. The commander in chief of the IDF, Gadi Eizenkot are meanwhile thinking about how to improve the security of the Tzeelim military base. In all likelihood new fences with gates and surveillance cameras will be installed; is not excluded, among other things, the use of aerial vehicles such as drones, to monitor the area and collect information on the Bedouin camps scattered throughout the desert. The news of the thefts inside the military bases hit the headlines after a group of reservists, fed up with the constant robberies, launched a media campaign titled “Ending the Lawlessness in Tzeelim”. The spokesperson for these reservists, Arik Greenstein, reported to the Knesset Ministry of Defense how the rules of engagement imposed on new recruits prevent any form of defense of the base in the face of these attacks.
“The rules of engagement in Southern Israel are identical to those in Tel Aviv, for this reason no reservist will ever act to defend themselves, because he doesn't want to get into trouble. Who comes here (in training centers) he does it to prepare for a war, doesn't want a legal battle with courts and expensive lawyers".
The rules of engagement for reservists in training are in fact extremely strict and the resulting problems do not only concern the theft of weapons. During the 2017 numerous soldiers reported harassment, insults and stone throwing by Bedouins during training in the middle of the desert. The Bedouins had also set up a complex system of surveillance of the military to ensure that they knew at all times what each individual Israeli platoon was doing. Once outside the base, during night training trips, the recruits were followed and surrounded by dozens of vehicles driven by Bedouin tribesmen.
The situation of the Bedouin tribes in Israel It's a problem that no one seems to worry about. It is estimated that there are more than 240 thousand Bedouins throughout the country but that less than half of these live in legally recognized cities or villages. The Israeli government has repeatedly attempted to remedy this thorny situation without ever fully succeeding. In the 1965, the Israeli National Planning and Construction Law allocated the Bedouin properties present in the Negev and which were not part of the new municipalities, to agricultural land, industrial or military, thus preventing the construction of any buildings and making existing Bedouin settlements illegal. The Bedouin villages became villages not recognized by the state in which it is still not possible to obtain building permits, There are no access roads or connections to running water, to electricity, or the sewage system; their inhabitants are however, to all intents and purposes, Israeli citizens. In the 2007 the Israeli government established the Goldberg Commission to resolve the "issue" of these "illegal" villages and, from the result of his work, the first draft of the Prawer plan was born (of Ehud Prawer, former deputy director of the Israeli National Security Council) approved by the Israeli parliament on 24 June of 2013.
The project, which has an expected cost of 5,6 billions of dollars, provides for the confiscation of 80 thousand hectares of land and the forced transfer of approximately 80 thousand Bedouins to the seven municipalities built by the government, where the highest crime rates in the country are recorded and infant mortality is four times higher than in Jewish settlements as also highlighted by a report published in May 2013 by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (Unrwa), in collaboration with the Israeli NGO Bimkom. The study highlights how forced urbanization has destroyed their lifestyle, based on pastoralism, the social fabric and the economic and commercial base. Unrecognized villages are often destroyed by bulldozers escorted by the army and the population is forced to return to living in tents in the middle of the desert. It's not hard to believe that, in such a situation, some of these tribes have made theft and selling of weapons their only source of livelihood.
What remains inexplicable, however, is how these weapons manage to end up in the hands of Palestinian extremists or even manage to cross the border. Numerous Israeli-made rifles and explosives have been used by Islamist rebels in Syria. For this reason some observers have advanced the hypothesis that behind these weapons thefts there may also be the connivance of state authorities or secret services. It is nothing new that in the war in Syria Israel supported all those forces hostile to the government of Bashar al-Assad even in ways that were not exactly in the name of clarity. In un clima di tensione come è quello che si respira ai confini settentrionali con il Libano, The suspicion that several hundred weapons may have ended up in the wrong hands certainly does not help the tranquility of the Jewish State.
Source: http://www.ilgiornale.it/redirect/mondo/nuovo-giallo-sulle-basi-israeliane-centinaia-armi-sparite-1499424.html