Israel Arrests Suspected Palestinian Arsonists After Wildfires

A police spokeswoman said on Saturday that almost 1,000 settlers were forced to leave the Halamish settlement near the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah as 45 settler units were damaged or destroyed by the fires.

An Israeli firefighter plane helps extinguish a fire in the northern Israeli port city of Haifa on November 24, 2016.

The country’s leaders have raised the possibility that Arab assailants had intentionally set the blazes.

Yael Hame, a Haifa resident who fled her house, said “the fire was up over the skyscrapers”.

The rare talk between Israeli and Palestinian leaders came as a string of massive fires have been raging for five days in Israel and its neighbors including the West Bank, Egypt and Lebanon.

While there were no serious injuries, several dozen people were hospitalised for smoke inhalation.

Greece, Cyprus, Turkey, Italy, Britain, Russia, and Croatia responded to Israel’s call for global help and sent more than a dozen of aircrafts to fight the raging blaze.

Police have arrested 23 people suspected of lighting fires or inciting arson, and interrogated another seven.

The site of the blaze was visited Friday by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was accompanied by Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan and other officials, according to Israel’s Government Press Office.

Cyprus, Britain, Greece, Turkey, Croatia, Russia, and Italy have all sent fire-fighting aircraft, and Romania and Bulgaria reportedly have sent other assistance.

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”.

He said numerous fires had disproportionately affected Arab areas, including in Haifa where he is from.

The Haifa fires were “under control” on Friday morning, Rosenfeld said, but he cautioned that “things can change and develop as we speak”.

Around 700 homes were damaged or destroyed as the flames fed by high winds ripped through thousands of hectares.

Palestinian fire crews assisted Israeli crews in northern Israel and near Jerusalem.

Around 80,000 people in Israel’s third largest city Haifa have been asked to evacuate the region as strong winds in the north of the city are strengthening the wildfire.

Levy said firefighters dealt with about 2000 fires in Israel and the West Bank, 20 of them major.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah movement said Israeli officials were “exploiting the fire” to blame Palestinians.

Education Minister Naftali Bennett blamed “pyro-terrorism” for the latest wave of fires, and said Israel ought to respond by expanding settlement construction in the West Bank.