With the remainder of Hamas’ terrorist force cornered by the Israeli military in Gaza, Palestinians have embarked on a campaign of arson, setting off massive wildfires across central and eastern Israel.
“Firefighting teams continued battling large wildfires across the Jerusalem Hills on Thursday morning, with 119 crews deployed across 11 active fronts in a race to contain the flames and protect nearby communities,” the Israel Hayom newspaper reported. “The fire has yet to be fully brought under control, but emergency officials report progress in containment efforts.”
Israeli firefighters, first responders, and civilians, including two toddlers, were among those injured as Palestinian arsonists followed Hamas’s call to turn Israel “into a fire hell.”
“Since the fires broke out on Wednesday morning, at least 17 people have suffered injuries from smoke inhalation and minor trauma, including two toddlers,” the daily added. “Two firefighters were evacuated to the hospital.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared a national emergency as fires spread along the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv highway, forcing thousands of Israelis from nearby communities to leave their homes, media reports on Thursday confirm.
The fires were strategically set off to devastate Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria — also know as the West Bank, leaving Palestinian areas unscathed, the Israeli news reports say.
“A map circulating in Israeli security circles depicts the locations of the fires, almost all of which are marked on the Israeli side of the Green Line separating the West Bank from Israel and Gaza—not in the areas inhabited by Palestinians,” the Israeli news website Ynet News reported Thursday. “Hamas posted on social media a call for Palestinians in the West Bank and Israel to “burn whatever you can of groves, forests and settler homes” and “set their cars ablaze.”
Bands of Palestinian arsonists were wreaking havoc across central and eastern Israel after Hamas urged them to “Go Burn! Go Burn!” forests, wildlife, and homes across Israel, the TV channel i24NEWS reported Thursday:
As violent fires are currently raging in Israel, Hamas published a message on Telegram on Wednesday calling on Palestinians to “burn everything they can in the groves, forests and settlers’ houses.””Youth of the West Bank, youth of Jerusalem, and those who are in Israel – set their cars on fire… Gaza awaits the revenge of the free people,” wrote the terrorist organization.Earlier, the Telegram channel Jenin News Network posted a similar message accompanied by a photo of a masked person setting fire to a field, with a burning city in the background. The image was captioned with “The settlers’ houses will be reduced to ashes under the feet of the revolutionaries” and the hashtag “Burn the settlers’ houses.”Many messages of the same kind have since spread on Palestinian social networks. “Let’s give them nightmares of the occupation, so they know that every day is a fight for resistance,” one message said. “Light the fires of freedom everywhere. We will not give up and will not abandon until we have burned every piece of stolen land.” The fires that are ravaging Israel have also been described as “flames of the flood,” in reference to the name given by Hamas to the massacre of October 7, “the Al-Aqsa Flood.”
Violent fires raged across the country as the Jewish State, on Wednesday, marked its 77th Independence Day, The Times of Israel reported:
Organizers of the annual Independence Day torch-lighting ceremony were forced to announce its cancellation on Wednesday, as many events were called off due to the risk posed by strong winds and rapidly spreading brush fires in the Jerusalem hills area west of the capital.At the same time, families marking Memorial Day with visits to cemeteries in the Jerusalem area also had their plans disrupted, as the Defense Ministry urged them to avoid the area due to the out-of-control flames.The fires in the Esthaol Forest erupted in the early afternoon and spread rapidly, as a heatwave accompanied by strong winds made it difficult for firefighters to bring the blaze under control.In total, 105 firefighting teams were on the ground and 12 firefighting planes were battling blazes from above in the Jerusalem area by late Wednesday afternoon, most of them concentrated around five hotspots: Neve Shalom, Latrun Interchange, Latrun, Mesilat Zion and Canada Park.After a memorial ceremony at the Latrun military memorial was interrupted by an evacuation order, the Defense Ministry put out a statement urging the public to refrain from visiting cemeteries in the Jerusalem area due to the risks posed by the spreading fires.
This is not the first time Hamas has turned to ecological terrorism against Israel. Before the October 7 attack, the Gaza-based terrorist groups had been launching explosives-laden kites and balloons across the border into southern Israel, which triggered massive fires. The terrorist group launched two such eco-terrorism campaigns in 2018 and 2020.
Hamas cares little about Palestinian lives, let alone wildlife. In a disturbing incident reported by Legal Insurrection in July 2018, Hamas terrorists tied an incendiary device to a falcon in a bid to set fire to nearby Jewish communities.
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