They are .22LR semi-autos. If you watch the movie "Munich" about the shooting of the '72 Israeli Olympic team, you'll see a few cameos of these nice little Berettas.
Golda Meir's operation "wrath of GOD" involved sending out kidon teams , armed with the Beretta M71's , to take out all those responsible for the Munich massacre. On a side note, a friend of mine, who spends a lot of time in Israel, says these pistols are carried currently by most all the civil servants, etc for personal weapons.
Brent