A Stolen Rifle, a Cocaine Ring and a Colonel Under Suspicion

An Israeli army reservist and a civilian have been charged over the theft of a weapon from a military base in northern Israel, in a case that the Israel Police said grew into an investigation of a drug network selling to soldiers. According to the police statement of 3 August 2026, indictments were filed against the two men on the day it was issued.

The statement said a reservist aged 30 from Tiberias, a city on the Sea of Galilee, was arrested on the evening of the theft on suspicion of taking the weapon from a soldier in his own unit. When investigators came to suspect that the weapon had passed to criminal hands, the Northern District's Central Unit opened a joint inquiry with the Military Police. That inquiry led to the arrest of a civilian aged 30 from Kiryat Tivon, a town near Haifa, who according to the investigation material received the rifle on the night it was taken. Police said the inquiry further established that this suspect and another man aged 34 from Tiberias had been running a trade in cocaine and other drugs in recent months, a large share of it supplied to soldiers on bases in the north of the country. The statement added that the brother of the soldier suspected of stealing the weapon, an officer with the rank of lieutenant colonel serving at a military camp in northern Israel, is under investigation for obstruction of justice and conspiracy to commit a crime, and that he was found to have passed on medical cannabis, which he had obtained lawfully, on several occasions.

How army weapons end up on the criminal market

Leakage of military weapons into civilian hands is a documented and long-running problem in Israel. Figures obtained under freedom-of-information rules and reported by the Times of Israel in October 2021 showed that between 2013 and 2020 the Israel Defense Forces lost hundreds of guns and machine guns, close to 50 rocket launchers, grenades, explosives and more than 150,000 rounds of ammunition.

The trade is lucrative. In June 2026 the Jerusalem Post reported the indictment of two conscript soldiers from northern Israel accused of removing three assault rifles from sleeping tents and a machine gun from a military vehicle; three of the weapons, the report said, were sold for more than 100,000 shekels each. A larger case the year before, reported by Israel National News in July 2025, saw seven suspects indicted over a ring that moved pistols, M16 and Kalashnikov rifles, more than 100 explosive charges and thousands of rounds to criminal organisations and to armed operatives.

Drugs on the bases

The allegation that narcotics were sold to serving soldiers also has precedent. In August 2023 the Jerusalem Post reported the indictment of an army lieutenant who, according to the military prosecution, sold a cocaine-type drug to undercover military police agents on three occasions over about two and a half months, and in whose home seven hand grenades were found.

What a medical cannabis licence allows

Medical cannabis is lawful in Israel under a Health Ministry framework, and the number of people holding authorisation is large: the Jerusalem Post reported in June 2023 that roughly 100,000 Israelis held medical cannabis licences at that time, mostly for pain and post-traumatic conditions, as the Knesset health committee moved to let specially trained doctors prescribe it directly for a list of qualifying illnesses. Licences are issued to named patients for their own treatment.

What the offences carry

Weapons offences in Israel have been subject to mandatory minimum sentencing since December 2021, when the Knesset passed a law requiring courts to impose at least a quarter of the maximum penalty for possession and trafficking offences. The same report cited a 2020 Knesset estimate that some 400,000 illegal weapons were circulating in the country.

What the statement did not say

The police did not name any of the men, did not say what specific charges the indictments contain or in which court they were filed, and did not say whether the stolen rifle was recovered. It gave no date for the theft, no quantity or value for the drugs said to have been traded, and did not say whether any soldier who bought drugs is under investigation. The lieutenant colonel was described as under investigation, not charged; the statement did not say whether he has been suspended from duty or given any response.