ALBAWABA - According to a report by Yedioth Ahronoth, Israel's prosecution has charged three Turkish citizens with planning to smuggle guns into Israel from Jordan in exchange for a promised $1 million payment.
Last month, the defendants—Rahman Gokyir, Yunus Ozel, and Oktay Asci—are said to have crossed the Jordanian border into Israel. They were then arrested by Israeli forces near Kibbutz Sha'ar HaGolan. The Nazareth District Court received the indictment from Ohad Cohen, a prosecutor with the Northern District Attorney's Office. It says they tried to sell weapons and broke security laws.
In September 2025, investigators say that Asci and Gokyir planned to smuggle three handguns from Turkey to Israel through Saudi Arabia and Jordan. But disagreements within the group led to the deal falling through before they could get the guns across the border.
Court documents show that Asci, who lived in Israel for almost two and a half years without a work permit before being deported in July 2025, suggested to Gokyir that they join a regional weapons-smuggling network. The plan allegedly involved Turkish middlemen and an Iranian arms dealer who were supposed to get the guns to Jordan and then into Israel.
The plan was for Gokyir to get the weapons when they got to Israel, sell them to people there, and keep the money from the sales. He was supposedly promised a $1 million payment for his part.
Proof and Arrests
The indictment also says that Asci had already been involved in smuggling while he was in Israel before. He is said to have hidden a gun near his apartment in Bat Yam before giving it to someone whose name he didn't know.
After Asci was sent back to his home country, he allegedly told Ozel, who was living in Israel at the time, to make another weapons deal at Tel Aviv's Central Bus Station. Ozel waited twice with cash in hand, but the person he was supposed to meet didn't show up. Even though the deal fell through, Ozel is said to have kept 5,000 shekels from the money that was supposed to go to the deal.
A bigger smuggling network
In a similar operation earlier this month, Israeli Border Police and Northern District officers arrested two more suspects—a 53-year-old Israeli resident and a 34-year-old Eritrean national—who were found near the Syrian border with five pistols hidden in their socks.
Investigators found that the men drove to the border in a Mercedes with an electric motorcycle. One of them rode the motorcycle to the border fence to get weapons that had been thrown over from Syria.
Police said the incident was part of a growing trend of smuggling weapons across borders by criminals and foreigners. The arrests came after four people from southern Israel were caught trying to use a drone to smuggle drug packages along the eastern border.
Authorities say that the combined arrests show that security is becoming more difficult because of international arms networks that operate through Jordan and Syria, with links to Turkey and Iran being looked into.
