Massive wildfires keep raging across Israeli occupied territories
Wildfires are raging near al-Quds and in other Israeli occupied territories for the second day as the number of settlers who have been forced to evacuate surpasses 10,000.
Massive fires continued to blaze across areas surrounding occupied al-Quds for the second day in a row on Thursday.
Major roads were closed and thousands of people were evacuated from several settlements. Reports said dozens had suffered injuries, including burns and smoke inhalation.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has declared the situation an emergency, warning that the wildfires could reach the city if containment efforts fail.
Netanyahu said in a statement on Thursday that 18 people had been arrested on suspicion of arson.
“We’re holding 18 people at the moment who are suspected of arson, one of whom was caught in the act,” Netanyahu said,
Despite Netanyahu’s claims, police sources told Hebrew media that only three people have been detained on suspicion of arson. The sources said that the three are suspected of trying to set other fires and are not involved in the massive fires near occupied al-Quds.
In response to accusations of arson, Ramy Abdu of the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor said, “Israeli propaganda has chosen to blame its failures on Palestinians.”
A vast part of occupied land has been engulfed by flames and thousands of acres of land have been destroyed and several areas are still ablaze.
The Israeli regime appealed to several countries, including Greece, Cyprus and Italy for urgent firefighting support.
The blaze, which authorities described as one of the largest in the regime’s history, erupted on Wednesday and has rapidly spread due to dry conditions and strong winds. According to the Israeli media, the cost of post-fire reconstruction could climb into the millions of dollars.
The Israeli regime has been accused of taking the threat of wildfires lightly over the past years. Tel Aviv has been accused of ignoring years of warnings about its lack of preparedness to deal with the threat of wildfires.
Dov Ganem, chairman of Israel’s Fire and Air Rescue Association, told the Walla news outlet that 18 years of warnings about a lack of preparedness to deal with wildfires have been met with “indifference” from policymakers.
“It was the NF fund that decided to plant non-native trees unsuited to the climate – solely to cover up the traces of the Nakba,” he said, referring to the New Israel Fund, based in the US, which is dedicated to helping settlers.
Nakba is an Arabic word meaning “catastrophe” and refers to Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Palestine, its exiling of Palestinians and its attempt to erase Palestinians from their homeland in 1948.
“It was Netanyahu who chose to spend millions on his private luxury jet, the ‘Wings of Zion,’ instead of investing in a Supertanker firefighting aircraft. It is the settlers who are repeatedly caught committing arson – racist acts of fire terrorism targeting Palestinian land, homes, and livelihoods,” he added.
