BICOM

Israeli security forces have uncovered what they described as one of the largest weapons factories they have ever discovered in the West Bank.

Hundreds of soldiers from the 890th Paratrooper Brigade, the 77th armoured brigade, combat engineers and Border Police took part in the raid early yesterday morning in the al-Fah industrial zone in Hebron. They discovered a factory in the basement of a family home, in which it is estimated at least ten people worked.

The forces seized 15 lathes used to produce parts for weapons including M-16 rifles, Carlo Gustav rifles and Russian 7.62 sniper rifles. In addition, they found 70 barrels of various types of ammunition, some of which was hidden in the walls of the building.

The IDF called the discovery “the biggest weapons factory ever discovered in the West Bank”.

An unnamed senior IDF officer told Haaretz: “I have never seen a workshop that makes so many arms, at such an accurate level and for so many different types of weapons.”

After initially claiming that the factory was used to manufacture farming equipment, the owner of the building and his son were arrested.

Since October 2015, a series of Palestinian terror attacks have killed at least 42 people. They have included a significant number of shooting attacks, typically involving improvised locally-made weapons made in illegal workshops. In an attempt to combat this, Israeli forces have succeeded in closing down 40 weapons-making workshops in the West Bank and have confiscated more than 420 guns in raids during this period.

Last night, multiple gunshots were fired at an Israeli public bus travelling in the West Bank, near Dolev and Talmon, north of Jerusalem. Nobody was injured in the attack, and the perpetrator fled the scene.

The incident followed an attack on Sunday evening, during which an Israeli man in his twenties was lightly injured when shots were fired at his car as he travelled near Halamish in the West Bank.