Israeli wildfires: Police detain 23 on suspicion of arson

The fires, which began Tuesday, have erupted throughout the country, blazing through parched forests, incinerating scores of homes and forcing tens of thousands of people to flee.

Israel accepted the help on Friday as thousands evacuated the city of Haifa as the fire intensified.

The country’s leaders claim Arab arsonists are behind numerous blazes. We strongly believe that the fires could have been started by individuals who fled the scenes.

On Saturday, the Israeli military said it had, together with the Shin Bet security service, arrested ten Palestinians from the West Bank on suspicion of arson over the prior several days.

Although no fatalities were reported, damage was said to be widespread and a few hundred people were treated for smoke inhalation.

Greece, Cyprus, Croatia, Turkey and Russian Federation offered help, with several aircraft already joining efforts to quell the blaze, dropping fire-retardant material to try to douse the heaviest fires and stem their spread.

“We will help you rebuild your homes”, he said.

Fire also broke out near the West Bank settlements of Dolev, Alfei Menashe and Karnei Shomron although there were no evacuations there.

A firefighting plane from Greece fights a wildfire over Haifa, Israel. Nael Al-Azzeh of the Palestinian Civil Defense said that eight fire trucks were provided by the Palestinian Civil Defense on Thursday in response to an Israeli request for help.

“It’s a crime for all intents and purposes and in our opinion it is terror for all intents and purposes”, said Netanyahu while visiting the Israeli city of Haifa Thursday.

Netanyahu has blamed Palestinian incitement for those attacks.

Police also said that although much of the evidence was destroyed by the fires, they were using forensic samples to determine whether the fires were ignited intentionally.

A police spokeswoman said the large-scale effort managed to bring the Nataf blaze under control by Saturday afternoon, allowing residents to return.

Speaking at Halamish on Sunday, Israeli Education Minister Naftali Bennett said that “the person who threw the firebomb – which was found – that lit the fire here tried to murder the residents of an entire settlement, no less”.

The Haifa fires were “under control” on Friday, Rosenfeld said, although large numbers of police, firefighters and rescue workers were still on the streets of the worst affected neighbourhoods to monitor and respond to possible new outbreaks, an AFP journalist said.

A statement by the Israeli police said that the blaze completely consumed at least 15 houses and seriously damaged 25 more.

Fearing the repetition of a deadly 2010 blaze in which 44 people died, the port-city of Haifa, which has suffered the most, declared a state of emergency.