'Everyone wants a gun' Many Israelis rush to buy firearms

Inside a gun shop in the West Bank, a salesman placed a collection of unloaded handguns on the counter and invited a group of men gathered around him to pick them up and see how it felt to squeeze the trigger. His advice was punctuated by the staccato of automatic rifle fire and the rhythmic sound of a handgun from the shooting range next door.

- Ruth Michaelson, Quique Kierszenbaum 

"Everyone comes in here wanting a Glock," he told the group. "But really you just need something that feels comfortable when you hold it in your hands." The group of men, some from Israel's religious Jewish communities, others dressed in T-shirts and smaller kippas, looked at the salesman as he talked them through choosing a handgun.

"I applied for my licence a month ago, and if the attack hadn't happened I'd have postponed this training, I wasn't in a rush. Instead I decided to do it immediately," said 29-year-old Yonatan Elbaz, a resident of the nearby Beitar Illit settlement.

Since the unprecedented attack by Hamas militants on 7 October that killed at least 1,400 Israelis, applications for gun licences across Israel have soared. Amid questions about the failure of Israel's famed intelligence services and how the army failed to protect its citizens living near the Gaza border, many have rushed to buy a gun, citing a need to take matters of defence into their own hands.