According to security ministry data, there have been 42,000 applications by women for gun permits since the attack, with 18,000 approved, more than tripling the number of pre-war licenses held by women.
The surge has been enabled by the loosening of gun laws under Israel's right-wing government and its far-right security minister Itamar Ben Gvir.
More than 15,000 women civilians now own a firearm in Israel and the occupied West Bank, with 10,000 enrolled in mandatory training, according to the ministry.
"I would have never thought of buying a weapon or getting a permit, but since October 7, things changed a little bit," political science professor Limor Gonen told AFP during a weapons handling class at a shooting range in the West Bank settlement of Ariel.
The October 7 attack that triggered the war resulted in the deaths of 1,194 people in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.
Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed at least 37,431 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to the territory's health ministry.
"We were all targeted (on October 7) and I don't want to be taken by surprise, so I'm trying to defend myself," Gonen said after the class, an obligatory step for acquiring a permit.
- 100,000 armed civilians -
While the immediate trigger for the surge in gun buying was the Hamas attack, Ben Gvir was already pledging to reform firearms legislation when he became security minister in late 2022.
He promised to raise the number of civilians holding weapons and "increase self-defence capacity".
Under Ben Gvir, the process for getting a gun license has been sped up, with Israeli media reporting that in the immediate aftermath of the Hamas attack the authorities were often clearing hundreds of permits per day.
Eligibility criteria for gun ownership in Israel now include being a citizen or permanent resident over the age of 18, having a basic command of Hebrew and medical clearance.
The full list of requirements makes it nearly impossible for non-Jews to obtain a permit.
In March, Ben Gvir, who is himself a settler in the West Bank, hailed civilian weapon ownership passing the 100,000 mark, while showing off his own gun at a rally.
But his rush to put deadly arms into the hands of ordinary Israelis has drawn criticism too.
The Gun Free Kitchen Tables Coalition, an Israeli initiative founded by feminist activists, condemned the civilian arms race.
It is "a strategy of far-right settlers to consider the arming of women to be a feminist act", a spokesperson for the group of 18 organisations told AFP.
"The increase of weapons in the civilian space leads to an increase in violence and murder against women. It's time for the state to understand that individual safety is its responsibility."
- 'More safe' -
Community manager Yahel Reznik, 24, said she now felt "a lot more safe" in Ariel, which sits three kilometres north of the Palestinian city of Salfit.
"Thanks to my training I will be able to defend myself and protect others" from an attack, she told AFP.
Violence in the West Bank, which was already rising before the war, has surged since October 7.
At least 549 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli settlers and troops across the West Bank since the start of the Gaza war, according to the Palestinian Authority.
Attacks by Palestinians have killed at least 14 Israelis, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
The surge in gun ownership is not limited to West Bank settlers. In the Israeli coastal city of Netanya, just north of Tel Aviv, Corine Nissim said she never leaves home without her gun.
The 42-year-old English teacher walked her three children to the park with a 9mm Smith & Wesson sticking out the back of her trousers.
"After October 7, I think like most people in Israel, I realised that the only person I can trust is myself," she told AFP, adding she bought a gun not to feel "helpless".
"The worst scenario that was going through my head was that, of course, terrorists attack me and my family in our own house," the mother said.
Her decision to own a gun initially surprised some in the seaside town known for its tranquillity and safety, she said.
"People watched me and said, 'This is so surreal to see you like this with a gun and with the baby'" said Nissim.
But, she said, others started to agree with her and said they would follow suit.
"Many women told me: 'I'm going to do it. I'm going to get a gun as well.'"
US Supreme Court upholds ban on domestic abusers owning guns
Washington (AFP) June 21, 2024 -
The US Supreme Court on Friday upheld a federal law prohibiting domestic abusers from possessing a firearm, the latest legal ruling in the country's fierce battle over gun rights.
It was the first gun case to come before the court -- where conservatives hold a 6-3 majority -- since a major decision issued in 2022 loosening gun restrictions.
"When an individual has been found by a court to pose a credible threat to the physical safety of another, that individual may be temporarily disarmed consistent with the second amendment," Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the 8-1 opinion.
"Since the founding, the nation's firearm laws have included regulations to stop individuals who threaten physical harm to others from misusing firearms. As applied to the facts of this case, (the law) fits comfortably within this tradition."
Gun violence is common in the United States, where there are more firearms than people, and the Gun Violence Archive registered more than 40,000 deaths last year. Attempts to clamp down on gun rights are always met with stiff political resistance.
President Joe Biden welcomed the decision, pointing to his record on strengthening gun safety and ending gender-based violence, and he vowed to push for tougher restrictions.
"As a result of today's ruling, survivors of domestic violence and their families will still be able to count on critical protections, just as they have for the past three decades," he said in a statement.
Biden added that he was "firmly committed" to ending violence against women and would push Congress for action to "stop the epidemic of gun violence tearing our communities apart."
In the 2022 decision, the nation's highest court said it would authorize only "reasonable" exceptions to the second amendment right to bear arms and would rely on historical precedents when it comes to regulating firearms.
That ruling left lower courts struggling to determine whether gun restrictions before them are consistent with "the history and traditions" of firearms regulation in the United States in the late 18th to the 19th century.
- 'Second amendment right' -
An ultraconservative appeals court ruled in March that a federal law banning gun ownership by people with domestic violence restraining orders was unconstitutional, for lack of historical precedent.
"A woman who lives in a house with a domestic abuser is five times more likely to be murdered if he has access to a gun," Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar said in November last year as she made the case for upholding the federal law for the Biden administration.
In the case before the court, police recovered a handgun and a rifle during a search of the Texas home of Zackey Rahimi, who had been implicated in five shootings in two months and was subject to a protective order on behalf of a former girlfriend which prohibited him from owning weapons.
Rahimi's attorney argued that there was no historical precedent for depriving his client of firearms without there being an actual conviction for a crime.
Dissenting from the court's opinion, conservative justice Clarence Thomas said states already have criminal prosecution as a tool for disarming anyone who uses a firearm to threaten physical violence.
"Most states, including Texas, classify aggravated assault as a felony, punishable by up to 20 years' imprisonment... Thus, the question before us is not whether Rahimi and others like him can be disarmed consistent with the second amendment," Thomas wrote.
"Instead, the question is whether the government can strip the second amendment right of anyone subject to a protective order -- even if he has never been accused or convicted of a crime. It cannot."
Some 100 gun control activists, including the actress Julianne Moore, carrying signs reading "Disarm Domestic Abusers" staged a demonstration outside the Supreme Court as the justices heard about 90 minutes of oral arguments last year.
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