Homemade guns produced by local gunsmiths in the West Bank are driving an increase in the use of firearms in attacks by Palestinians on Israelis.

In particular, the use of “Carl Gustav” or “Carlo” submachine guns – crudely manufactured in small metal shops and modelled on a Swedish weapon from the 1950s – has become increasingly apparent.

On Monday, such a gun was one of two weapons used in a attack on Israeli soldiers near Hebron, one of two car-ramming attacks (£) at the entrance to the southern West Bank Israeli settlement of Kiryat Arba.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Two weapons seized after an attack on Israeli soldiers on Monday at the entrance to the Israeli settlement at Kiryat Arba. The machine pistol (above) is the variant of the homemade ‘Carl Gustav’ submachine gun. Photograph: Supplied by Israel Defence Forces

Carl Gustav-style weapon have been used in many of the 68 shootings that have targeted Israelis since 1 October, when the current wave of violence began.

Such a gun was also used in an attack in East Jerusalem last week that injured two Israeli policemen.

According to the Israeli domestic security service and Israel Defence Forces, dozens of homemade guns and items for gun fabrication have been seized in raids in recent months, most recently on Saturday when 15 rifles were discovered in a village near Jenin following the arrest of a gunsmith.

Video footage of that raid showed an officer from Shin Bet, Israel’s security agency, removing guns wrapped in cloth and hidden behind plaster in the ceiling of a house.

Two weeks earlier a gunmaking workshop was uncovered near Nablus. It included guns, a metalworking lathe and ammunition.

The use of homemade guns shows how much the Palestinian Authority’s security forces and Palestinian factions have kept control over their large number of weapons.

A Carl Gustav and an improvised sniper rifle with a silencer made from an oil can were also seized during the arrest of two young brothers from Hebron accused of being behind a series of recent sniper attacks in which two soldiers and two civilians were wounded.

The original homemade Carl Gustav was first identified in 2000. That gun was a crude but effective weapon with a simple barrel welded into a tubular metal stock, with a straightforward grip and a spring-operated firing mechanism.

The weapon was cheap and relatively easy to produce and it was initially popular with Palestinian and Arab-Israeli criminals involved in drug trafficking and dealing on the West Bank.

According to some analysts, the popularity of the Carl Gustav has been driven by the unavailability of more conventional modern weapons and their prohibitively high price on the parallel market. AK47s and Tavors can cost up to $10,000 (£7,000) while the cheapest Carl Gustavs cost about $500.

Concern over the increasing use of the weapons – one of which was used to kill a 19-year old Israeli policewoman at the Damascus gate of Jerusalem’s Old City in February – has prompted a drive in recent weeks by the Shin Bet and Israeli army to break up production of the homemade guns.

Speaking after the death of Hadar Cohen, last month, Israel police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld noted that while the Carl Gustavs were not “military grade, manufactured weapons” they were coming closer to that level.

According to a senior official quoted by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz over the weekend, the spread of the Carlo was encouraged by the Shin Bet’s relative lack of interest in the arms being used for Palestinian criminality. This was despite the fact that weapons shops producing them were known about as early as 2012.

“The Shin Bet did not see a criminal issue affecting Arab communities as something that would one day be on their doorstep,” the official told the paper. “Their primary effort was against the main terror organisations – Hamas, Fatah, Islamic Jihad – and not the criminals from [Israeli-Arab town] Tira.”

The DIY guns have, however, increasingly fitted into an emerging pattern of violence that has seen either individuals or small groups of friends or associates, largely unrelated to factions, organise “lone wolf” attacks. Another advantage of the homemade guns is a lack of serial numbers, making them more discreet and harder to trace.

The growing issue was highlighted this month by the case of two young Arab-Israeli men from Nazareth who were accused of saving up their money – reportedly inspired by Islamic State – to buy a gun for an attack on a military checkpoint.

“A genuine M16 [assault rifle] now costs 60,000 to 70,000 shekels [£10,700-£12,500] on the street, whereas an improvised gun can cost as little as 2,000 shekels,” one Palestinian told Reuters this month. “For a young person looking to carry out an attack with limited resources, the choice is obvious.”