Israeli soldiers to carry guns home after duty

Israeli soldiers have been ordered to take their guns with them when off duty to allow them to intervene in the event of Palestinian attack, the military said Tuesday.

The decision comes after off-duty soldier Tuvia Weissman, 21, was stabbed to death at a supermarket in an Israeli industrial zone in the occupied West Bank on Thursday.

His wife told Israeli media that Weissman, who was a dual Israeli-American citizen, had asked his superiors if he could carry his gun with him to protect himself, but they refused and required him to leave it at his base’s armoury.

Israeli military chief of staff Lt. Gen. Gadi Eisenkot has now “ordered that soldiers carry their weapons even outside of their service,” including while going home for leave, an army spokeswoman told AFP. Soldiers had not previously been allowed to take their guns with them while on leave out of fear they could be stolen or used to commit suicide.

All Jewish Israelis are required to perform military service after they reach the age of 18. Thursday’s attack was part of a wave of Palestinian knife, gun and car-ramming assaults that erupted in October. The violence has claimed the lives of 27 Israelis, as well as an American and an Eritrean. In addition, 176 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces.

Meanwhile, Israel destroyed the homes of two Palestinians accused of separate attacks that left five people dead, the Army said Tuesday, the latest in a series of punitive demolitions that have drawn criticism from rights groups.

The overnight demolitions west of Hebron targeted the homes of two men said to be behind November 19 knife and car-ramming attacks in Israel’s commercial capital Tel Aviv and at a junction in the occupied West Bank. Mohammed al-Harub is accused of opening fire at a junction near Israeli settlements in the West Bank then ramming his car into a group of pedestrians. An Israeli, a Palestinian and an American were killed.

The same day, Raid Masalmeh stabbed two Israelis to death at an office building and car park in Tel Aviv. Harub’s home was in Dayr Samet while Masalmeh’s was in Dura, both west of Hebron in the southern West Bank. The two men have been arrested. Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, under political pressure to halt the violence, has moved to expedite demolitions of alleged attackers’ homes as a punitive measure. Human rights groups say the measure amounts to collective punishment, with the suspects’ families forced to suffer for others’ alleged acts.

While, a psychiatrist has ruled that an Israeli found to have led the burning alive of a Palestinian teenager in 2014 was responsible for his actions, the lawyer for the victim’s family said Tuesday. The court appointed a psychiatrist who “concluded that the principal accused lied about his mental state to avoid judgement," lawyer Mohannad Jbara said.