The Mauser K98 7.92 mm rifle arrived to Israel during Israel's War Of Independence in 1948. Some of the rifles were original German made by Mauser, but most were Czechoslovakian replicas.

Several of the rifles were fitted with Wild X4 scopes and were utilized as sniper rifles, but most of them were employed as regular assault rifles.

Only in the mid 1950's, with the mass entrance of Israel Military Industries (IMI) Uzi Sub Machine Guns (SMG) and FN FAL assault rifles to the IDF, all the K98 were converted to sniper configuration and were the standard IDF's long range infantry style sniping rifle up until the late 1970's when they were replace in this role by the newly arrived M14 SWS.