Palestinian Gun Makers Keep Installing Barrels That Point At Shooter’s Foot

Several international bodies have either blamed Israel for the phenomenon or called on the Jewish State to do more to protect Palestinians from such developments.

Hebron, December 27 – Makeshift firearms of Palestinian manufacture continue to roll off the assembly line with gun barrels that face downward toward the user’s lower extremities, industry observers report.

The weapons – homemade knockoffs of more reliable models – have been used in numerous attacks on Israeli civilians and soldiers over the last dozen years, with the IDF making routine raids into Palestinian-ruled areas to conduct arrests and shut down facilities making the firearms. Military officials note that if not for a manufacturing feature that causes Palestinians to aim at their own feet, many more Israelis would have been harmed.

“The Palestinian Authority doesn’t have a formal set of standards for this kind of thing,” explained IDF Lt. Col. Carl Gustav, whose unit has confiscated dozens of the submachine guns in the course of operations. “But a gun barrel that points at the shooter’s feet is about the closest thing Palestinian firearms production has to an industry standard.”

Lt. Col. Gustav added that the manufacturing trend extends to arenas beyond armaments, and has been spotted in recent decades in Palestinian diplomacy, politics, economics, environmental protection, public health, infrastructure, and several other arenas.

In fact, several international bodies have either blamed Israel for the phenomenon or called on the Jewish State to do more to protect Palestinians from such developments. During the last war between Israel and Hamas in 2014, a significant proportion of Palestinian casualties were caused by rockets that fell short, and landed within the Gaza Strip, failing to reach Israel. The phenomenon became so dangerous that various UN officials demanded that Israel supply Gaza with its Iron Dome system to intercept incoming missiles.

On Tuesday, Pierre Krähenbühl of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees issued another call for Israel to take action against the threat of foot-aimed makeshift firearms. “Treatment of this hazard remains the responsibility of the occupying power,” he asserted. “It would undermine everything this agency, and the United Nations at large, represents if we were to demand that Palestinians exercise caution, self-control, responsibility, or basic volition.”

Israel does treat numerous Palestinians in its hospitals for conditions for which Palestinian health care facilities lack resources or experience, but Ministry of Health officials declined to provide exact numbers of Palestinian patients treated in Israeli hospitals for self-inflicted gunshot wounds to the foot. An Islamic Red Crescent Society representative remained similarly reticent when asked about the number of its ambulances used for transportation of rioters to violent confrontations as compared to the number used to transport those self-inflicted gunshot patients to treatment.

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