The Procurement Directorate of the Israeli Ministry of Defense has published a tender for the purchase of 20 thousand M4A1 automatic carbines with an option to purchase the same number.
According to the terms of the tender, at least 51% of the machine’s parts must be produced in Israel, and assembly must be carried out only in Israel.
Until now, the IDF bought almost all of its small arms from the United States using American military aid money. The change in vector is associated with the risk of an arms embargo and the plan adopted to minimize this risk of switching to in-house production whenever possible.
Therefore, another condition of the tender is to import only those parts that do not require a special import permit.
At the moment, there are three companies in Israel that produce firearms to standards that meet the requirements of the Ministry of Defense – IWI, Emtan Carmiel and Silver Shadow. The Ministry of Defense intends to select two winners based on the results of the tender