For
the full article go to “Times Of Israel” http://tinyurl.com/z3jrx9r
Police chief Roni
Alsheich says arson attacks are nothing new; cops prepared to treat cases as
terrorism.
Two Israeli Arabs
arrested on suspicion of deliberately starting brush fires have confessed to
the crimes, police reportedly told ministers at the weekly cabinet meeting on
Sunday.
The suspects were
said to from the Israeli Arab towns of Umm al-Fahm and Deir Hanna in northern
Israel, the Hebrew-language Ynet news website reported. The report did not
specify which fires the two admitted to igniting or offer details on the
suspects.
While many of the
fires that ravaged towns and cities nationwide since Tuesday have been caused
by negligence, officials say at least some of the blazes were started by
nationalistically motivated Arab arsonists and have vowed to crack down on the
perpetrators.
On Sunday, officials
offered assurances that the wave of wildfires that swept across the country
over the past six days had mostly come to an end, at least for the time being,
but fresh blazes were later reported in northern Israel.
At least 35 people
have been arrested since Thursday on suspicion of setting fires or inciting
others to do so. More than 15 were Palestinians arrested by the Israel Defense
Forces and Shin Bet security service, an army spokesperson said. At least 10 of
those held are Israeli Arabs, according to Hebrew media reports. Police did not
offer a detailed breakdown of how many were being detained for incitement and
how many for arson.
Police chief Roni
Alsheich said Sunday that there had been similar arson attacks in the past and
that they should be considered acts of terror, Army Radio reported.
“If setting the fire
was deliberate it is definitely terror,” Alsheich said during a visit to the
West Bank settlement of Halamish, where a fire destroyed 18 homes on Friday
night. “By the way, that is nothing new, there have been arson incidents in the
past. The concentration of a relatively large number of days, and the number of
incidents and the weather conditions, brought about these results but there is
nothing new and there were incidents like this in the past.”
Alsheich said the
security services are equipped to deal with terror and hinted that Israel was
prepared to employ more stringent measures if necessary.
“We have good tools
for dealing with terror — we haven’t yet taken advantage of them; we will
review things and if we think that the measures are lacking we will demand
them… There are sufficient measures in the Israeli book of laws.”
Earlier Sunday,
Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman said there was “proof” that 17 of 110
recorded wildfires were caused by arsonists, and authorities “were still
investigating the other incidents.”
Authorities estimate
that since Tuesday, some 130,000 dunams (32,124 acres) have been destroyed,
approximately 30 percent more than a major blaze in the forests around Haifa
six years ago.
Haifa city officials
said Saturday that this week’s fires torched some 28,000 dunams (6,900 acres)
of land in the city since Thursday.
At least 60,000 of
the city’s residents were evacuated Thursday while firefighters battled to
contain a blaze that had entered a dozen of the city’s neighborhoods from the
nearby Carmel Forest.
Most had returned
home by Sunday morning, but an estimated 1,600 residents remained without
homes. Between 400 and 530 apartments were said to be completely destroyed by
the flames. Dozens of homes in other locales have also been damaged by separate
wildfires during the wave.
It was not
immediately clear that the motive of all the arsonists was terrorism. Israeli
security officials on Saturday night gave preliminary indications that weather
conditions were the prime cause of the initial wave of fires. From Wednesday
and into the weekend, security officials and politicians indicated that arson
was being investigated in some cases.
Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu said Friday there was “no doubt” some of the fires were
started deliberately. “There is a price to pay for the crimes committed, there
is a price to pay for arson terrorism,” he said.
The Magen David Adom
rescue service reported Saturday that among the 133 people treated by the
organization for fire-related injuries, one was seriously hurt and three others
were moderately injured.
Throughout the week,
firefighting equipment from the US, Russia, Turkey, Greece, France, Spain,
Canada and the Palestinian Authority joined Israeli crews in dumping tons of
water and retardants on the fires around Israel and the West Bank.
Video of the week: Wild
fires rage in Israel http://tinyurl.com/nco4cfx
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