22 under arrest for fires set in Israel lines here please

The Palestinian Authority also said it will send fire crews to assist in putting down the fires.

According to spokesman for Israel’s Fire and Rescue Services, Yoram Levi, firefighters have dealt with more than 250 large fires since last weekend.

Netanyahu said that authorities “cannot tell” whether this was a coordinated effort on the part of Arab citizens but they “can see a number of cells operating”. Netanyahu said investigators are working overtime to apprehend anyone involved in setting off fires.

Some are suspected of criminal negligence leading to accidental fires in tinder-dry woodland and undergrowth, while there are also suspicions that some may have been deliberate and related to the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

Overnight between Friday and Saturday, the Palestinians sent two other trucks from Ramallah to help put out a fire in the Jewish West Bank settlement of Halamish, Israeli officials said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets with a Croatian firefighting aircrew at Hatzor Airbase, Friday.

Around 700 homes were damaged or destroyed as the blazes fed by high winds and dry conditions ripped through thousands of hectares.

As of this writing, over 200 fires have been reported, thousands have been evacuated from their homes and many people have been hospitalized and treated for injuries.

Police said one man from the Bedouin village of Rahat in southern Israel had been arrested for incitement after he posted a message on his Facebook page calling on others to start fires.

Although no fatalities were reported, hundreds of people needed hospitals care after they inhaled smoke, and on Thursday about 75,000 people were evacuated from Haifa, Israel’s third-largest city, after fires broke out in multiple sites.

“We are facing arsonist terror”.

On Thursday, Turkey sent specialized planes to Israel to help put out the fires, while Greece, Croatia, Italy, the Greek Cypriot administration and Russian Federation have also offered to send fire-fighting aircraft.

Attending to the rash of fires across the country, firefighting planes from Israel and countries including Russia, Turkey, Greece, France, Spain and Canada have dumped tons of water and retardants.

A spokesperson for the Haifa Fire Department said Friday that they had evidence that a fire started near the city’s main fire depot was an act of arson.

The rash of fires is the worst since 2010, when Israel suffered the single deadliest wildfire in its history.