In an occupied West Bank settlement, ultra-Orthodox martial arts instructor Moshe Katz leads students in role-playing games about the October 7 Hamas attacks and teaches them how to turn weapons around in a hostage situation.
“First I’ll take you hostage, then you do it to me,” he told a student while swinging a blue rubber Kalashnikov during a simulation of Krav Maga, an Israeli martial art.
Katz switched to the role of hostage and ordered the student to grab him by the back of his shirt.
“So now he grabs me here and I say there’s no way I’m going to be the victim,” Katz said before grabbing the muzzle of the toy gun and pointing it at the would-be attacker.
“Today it’s your turn to die, not me!” he shouted.
Katz, 63, has converted the basement of his house into a makeshift dojo for Krav Maga classes.
The self-defense system, which includes an aggressive fighting style and targeted strikes on weak points such as the neck and groin, is a mix of various martial arts, boxing and wrestling and has been taught in the Israeli military for decades.
With many Israelis gripped by a sense of insecurity since October 7, Katz saw an opportunity to spread his knowledge of the close combat system.
“I think thousands of years of our history have proven that we need to know how to defend ourselves,” said 56-year-old intern Mordechai Sachs, who had driven an hour from West Jerusalem.
The Hamas-led attacks killed 1,195 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures. The militants also took 251 hostages, 116 of whom are still in Gaza, including 42 who the Israeli military says are dead.
According to figures from the Ministry of Health in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, at least 38,848 people have been killed in the Israeli military offensive, again mostly civilians.
– “Buy more weapons” –
Katz’s lessons include several scenarios, including fending off a knife attack with kitchen utensils and disarming a gunman robbing a supermarket.
The Israeli settlement he calls home, like all settlements in the occupied West Bank, is considered illegal under international law.
Since the Gaza war began in October, violence in the already troubled areas has reached levels not seen for decades.
According to Palestinian officials, at least 576 Palestinians have been killed there by Israeli troops or settlers since October 7.
During the same period, according to Israeli sources, 16 Israelis, including soldiers, were killed in violent clashes with Palestinians.
Katz said some students no longer drive to evening Krav Maga classes due to safety concerns.
“They don’t like to come at night,” he said.
Since the outbreak of war, the number of his students in the biweekly courses has fallen by half to fewer than ten, which Katz attributes to the increasing proliferation of weapons.
In March, the government relaxed restrictions on private gun ownership and sales have skyrocketed since then.
“I wish I could tell you that people are coming in droves to learn Krav Maga, but that’s not the case,” Katz said. “What I’ve observed is that people are buying more guns.”
One of the trainees, Esther Cohen, showed up for class with a recently purchased gun in her waistband.
“Some pretty brutal things happen,” Cohen said. “I don’t want to be helpless.”
But Katz said the extra seconds it takes to draw a gun could mean “the difference between life and death.”
Outside the West Bank, in the Israeli city of Raanana, another Krav Maga gym said bookings had returned.
“After the war … there was actually less training. Later we actually noticed a kind of desire among people to learn to defend themselves,” said 22-year-old instructor Jonathan, who did not want to give his last name.
For Katz, the need for Israelis to learn self-defense is clear: “We are the first line of defense and we are the last line of defense.”
