“We’re changing the criteria . . . to make it possible for more and more people to be armed,” Itamar Ben-Gvir told reporters on Wednesday.
“This war proves how important it is to arm the citizenry . . . We’ve decided that from now on every Sderot resident will be able to carry a weapon.”
Local media reported that Sderot residents had been told to stay in bomb shelters until further notice on Wednesday morning, after paramedics confirmed several had been injured in multiple rocket strikes.
The far-right national security minister had announced his ministry is buying 10,000 guns to arm “civilian security teams” across the occupied territories.
The weapons, 4,000 of which have already been bought, will go to the towns close to the borders, but also to illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank and to mixed Palestinian-Jewish cities, like Haifa.
Ben-Gvir is a hardline Jewish settler who has past convictions for supporting terrorism and incitement against Palestinians.
