After Beersheba attack, police to ease gun policy for passersby who shoot attackers

Police have said they will implement a new gun policy for civilians involved in neutralizing terrorists, following an attack in the southern city of Beersheba that killed four Israelis on Tuesday.

Mohammad Ghaleb Abu al-Qi’an, 34, killed two women and two men in the attack in the southern city before he was shot dead by armed civilians. A former schoolteacher from the Bedouin town of Hura, he had served time in prison for plotting to join the Islamic State jihadist group in Syria.

Police were criticized for confiscating the handguns of the civilians who neutralized the terrorist, one of whom, a resident of the West Bank, said he feared to go home unarmed.

Under the new procedure, introduced Wednesday, police said a civilian whose gun was taken to be forensically examined after they were involved in neutralizing a terrorist would be accompanied home by police officers, and a new handgun would be issued for them in an expedited procedure.