I recall reading in a Col. Jeff Cooper article, probably titled "Social Use of the Supressed .22" or something, everything you mention here, Glenn.

Ha! I bet the Isrealis DO use that technique, which was made up by the gun-gawd Jeff Cooper, when he was watching the Seattle riots on TV. Since those kind of things are always instigated by several individuals, he was proposing that police snipers use silenced .22's to hit the guys when they were speaking. It would not kill them, but it would stop them from speaking, and in an incredible inobvious way.

Cooper is well regarded in military/police circles, having invented modern pistolcraft and IPSC. The Isrealis easily have the means and the will to put this kind of plan into action.

-Donut, scary gun nut

Just because Cooper has written of something doesn't make it an Israeli tactic. In fact, while Cooper did invent modern pistolcraft, he isn't a SWAT expert at all and isn't consulted as one. I doubt that .22 Long Rifle is being used by any IDF or Israeli police snipers. Far more likely is that its more Palestinian fables.

Suppression is easier (not really possible with a .223 or .308) with subsonic 22's. We used a similar, but lethal, idea in Vietnam with a chopped off .458 winmag (subsonic 500gr. bullet).

The .22LR was/is the round of choice for Israeli assassination teams. The tactics are to use a silencer-equipped competition-grade.22LR semiautomatic pistol at close range for a headshot. With the silencer the round has sufficient velocity to penetrate the skull but not enough to exit, so it bounces around a bit assuring a kill. The sound is also well suppressed.

I’ve heard the Beretta .25 semiautomatic pistol referred to as the perfect suicide weapon for the same reason. I’ve also been told that some professionals carry the tiny Beretta .25 as a spare for close-in encounters of the surprising kind.

Amusing but Mossad's favorite assassination technique is currently car bombs in Lebanon and poison in Jordan. Well, maybe not the latter since it failed. And if I remember correctly the botched assassination of a Moroccan waiter ( mistaken for a member of Black September who murdered Israeli athletes at Munich olympics ) was not done with .22 rimfires.

Yes, quite amusing. You appear to remember incorrectly. This piece. states that the waiter, Ahmed Bouchiki, was killed with Baretta .22 caliber pistols.

This web page has information about Israeli .22 sniper rifles:

http://www.isayeret.com/weapons/sws/ruger/ruger.htm

Hmm, interesting link on that. It's funny how Israel gets criticized so much for being too brutal, yet they go to great lengths trying to find the most non-lethal sniper rifle possible.

The isayeret unofficial Israeli Special Forces website says they use suppressed Ruger .22s. This would be cheaper than using M16s.

Could it have been an M16 converted for practice shooting? If so, why would it be kept in the home? This sounds more like someone used their privately-owned weapon, but who knows?

I've had experience with M-16 kits that allow the rifle to fire a .22 long rifle. This was a US Army kit used for target practice. This would add credibility to the kid's story that the woman was using an M-16.

.22s are actually quite lethal; while they might not do a heck of a lot of damage at the time, they can cause a nasty wound which is difficult to treat, and which often results in death well after the fact. Abdominal wounds caused by .22s tend to snake around the body, leaving an impossible cleanup task for the surgon; head wounds, if they penetrate the skull, are often immediatly fatal.

I can imagine the advantage of a .22 is not that it isn't lethal, but that overpenetration is limited, thereby reducing risk to people behind the target. This would make it ideal for picking an individual out of a crowd.

I'm a lawyer living and working in Israel. In the course of my work I've had occasion to deal with cases in which Palestinians claim to have been shot by Israeli soldiers or Border Police.

As a result I have become familiar with weapons,tactics and rules of engagement.

.22 caliber rifle rounds were indeed used on an experimental basis at the beginning of the Intifada that started in 1987. They were used for only a relatively short period of time. Offhand I can't remember exactly when they were discontinued but it was years before the Intifida stopped in 1993. Even when used there were strict rules of engagement , stating among other things that the sniper had to aim for the leg, below the knee.

The tactical purpose was the non-lethal incapacitation of ring-leaders of violent demonstrations in which the demonstrators might use rocks,chunks of metal or Molotov cocktails.

The use of the .22 round was supplanted by the use of a plastic 5.56 millimeter round fired from an M-16. There are also strict rules of engagement regarding the use of the plastic round. It can only be fired by a specially trained officer, from a rifle equipped with a telescopic sight and at the target's leg, below the knee. Moreover the officer is allowed to fire only when the target is within the boundaries of a certain minimum and maximum range. The officer isn't allowed to fire at a target beyond the maximum range, because the light weight of the plastic bullet causes the flight path to deviate too much and beyond the maximum range it could result in an innocent person being injured. The officer isn't allowed to fire at a target closer than the minimum range because if he should hit a vital organ by accident the velocity at close range could be lethal.

Bottom line, the Palestinian mentioned in the original link was shot in the year 2000, long after the use of .22 caliber rifle bullets were discontinued. If that was was hit him then he wasn't hit by an Israeli military sniper/

The .22 LR adapter kit that K Murphy mentioned above is commonly available in US---I have one---not remarkably accurate. The rifling twist rate might be lifted from this bullet to see if it was shot through an M-16 rifle (1 turn in 7 or 9 inches for current weapons) versus a Ruger or other (more likely 1 turn in 12?) originally chambered for LR.

idf snipers do use ruger 10/22s. trust me, i have several israeli friends

This article casts more light on this issue, mentioning that the israelis used Ruger 10/22's with silencers as some kind of riot-controll guns, primarly as a "less-lethal" alternative to the .223 calibre M16/Galis IDF Standard weapons. However, it proved somewhat more lethal than original thought of, so after several deaths of palestinians as a result of mostly chest wounds, it's deployment was cut down dramatically, and it was classified as a lethal weapon.

Oops, didn't see that someone had allready posted that link above. Sorry.