Fisherman hooks a rifle likely used by Syrian soldier in 1967 war

A Tiberian fisherman made a surprise catch on Friday in the Sea of Galilee while out for his weekly fishing run — a Kalashnikov rifle that had been lying in the water for decades.

According to Ynet, the fisherman handed the weapon over to police, who speculated that a Syrian soldier had probably lost it in the 1967 Six Day War, or possibly earlier.

Maritime police from the Sea of Galilee said it was not clear from the fisherman’s description whether the rifle was an active weapon, and initially ordered the fisherman to keep his distance until a sapper arrived to evaluate it.

A police officer who arrived at the scene determined it was a Kalashnikov rifle in good condition. A sapper also surmised, from the structure of the rifle, that it was an old weapon used in Syria. Ynet reported that a Syrian soldier apparently lost the weapon during or before the Six Day War.

The Tiberias police learned from the Tiberian fisherman that he had discovered the weapon on the bottom of the lake at a depth of about 12 meters, and at a distance of about 250 meters from Dekel Beach, in the western part of the Sea of Galilee.

The police and the fisherman estimated that strong winds caused the weapon to drift closer to shore.

Last year, two unexploded bazookas were unearthed at Jerusalem’s Ammunition Hill, the location of a fierce battle between Israeli and Jordanian troops during the Six Day War.

Israel captured Jerusalem’s Old City and East Jerusalem and the West Bank from the Jordanians during the June 1967 war, in addition to the Golan Heights from Syria and the Sinai Peninsula and Gaza Strip from Egypt.