The Hollander Shooting Club in Kfar Saba, north of Tel Aviv, was packed. Customers were arriving by the hundreds for the training required to obtain a firearms license. The exercise, consisting of theoretical and practical courses, lasted all day. In a gymnasium, a group of nine men aged from their twenties to their sixties were practicing drawing their weapons, firing blanks, taking a knee, changing magazines, in front of their instructor, a member of the Israeli special forces. "You have to reload without taking your eyes off the enemy. You're not a Rambo yet, but with a little practice, you'll become one," he asserted.
"I came here to get my own gun. Since the attack on October 7, no one feels safe anymore. Israel will never be the same again. It's transforming people, politics, the army... I live next to the Arab territories. What Hamas has done could happen to us. This isn't science fiction," worried Amir Erez, 49. Father of three teenage daughters and owner of a small software company, he spent 25,000 shekels – nearly €6,000 – for the full training course, as well as the pistol and ammunition. The aim, for him and his comrades, was to be able to hold out until help arrived in the event of an attack.
"A lot of people didn't want guns in the home. But that's changed. We may have to hire new people, to cope with the influx of new applicants," said Riki Hollander, the head of the club, which is a family affair. Roy, her son, 24, who had just finished his service as a shooting instructor in the army, believed that a weapon was useful: "It can slow down an attack. Terrorists can't walk freely outside if they're under threat of fire."
Since Hamas's massacre, Israel has had to cope with an unprecedented demand for guns: 180,500 new applications have been submitted to acquire a private weapon, according to the Ministry of National Security, headed by Jewish supremacist Itamar Ben-Gvir. The trend had already been increasing. In 2021, there were 19,000 applications. They doubled in 2022 reaching 42,000 as a consequence of the violent May 2021 riots, when cities with mixed populations were the scene of clashes between Jews and Palestinians with Israeli citizenship. On the country's streets, reservists have become more ready to display their assault rifles. Yet only 2% of Israelis legally own a gun.
"Israel has always sought to maintain a balance between a level of individual armament that is both reduced, to limit crime, domestic violence or suicides, and extended to provide support to security forces in the fight against terrorism. We had a functional policy," explained Tomer Lotan, former director general of the Ministry of National Security.
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