The Israel Defense Forces shut down “the biggest weapons factory ever discovered in the West Bank” during an overnight raid in Hebron on Sunday, Ynet News reported.

Troops recovered 15 gun-making lathes, dozens of homemade Carl Gustav-style rifles, Russian 7.62 sniper rifles, M-16 rifle parts with assembly instructions, and large quantities of ammunition in the workshop, which was located in the basement of a residence in southern Hebron.

The underground plant’s owner and his son were arrested and handed over to the Shin Bet for questioning. During a field interrogation, the father claimed that the seized material was used to manufacture farming equipment, until soldiers found the workshop below.

“I have never seen a workshop that makes so many arms, at such an accurate level and for so many different types of weapons,” an unnamed senior IDF officer told Haaretz.

In the past year, the IDF has shut down some 40 weapons manufacturing workshops and seized over 420 guns in the West Bank. Security forces say that homemade weapons were frequently used during the wave of terror that began in October 2015, including the firearm used in June’s terror attack on the Sarona Market in Tel Aviv.

The cost of the homemade weapons is significantly lower than that of military grade weapons, making them easier to acquire.

In September, the IDF raided a bomb-making laboratory near Nablus and recovered over 200 pounds of bomb-making material. A month earlier, Israeli security forces raided seven arms manufacturing workshops across the West Bank, confiscating dozens of illegal weapons.

In December of last year, security forces broke up a Hamas terrorist cell and uncovered their bomb-making laboratory near Jerusalem. The cell was planning on conducting suicide bombings.

[Photo: Israel Defense Forces / YouTube ]