Palestinians help Israel fight fires as 13 held on suspicion of arson

A Croatian firefighter plane helps extinguish a new fire that broke out in the Israeli town of Nataf, west of the Arab Israeli town of Abu Ghosh, along the border with the occupied West Bank on Friday. (AFP)

JERUSALEM: The Palestinian Authority is assisting Israel in combating raging wildfires across the country.
The Palestinian Civil Defense provided eight fire trucks Thursday in response to an Israeli request for help, according to Nael Al-Azzeh of the Palestinian Civil Defense, based in West Bank city of Ramallah.
Four of the trucks went to Haifa and four to the Jerusalem area, he said.
The offer came as Israeli leaders are implying that Arab arsonists are behind some of the fires.
The official Palestinian news agency WAFA said that the Palestinians offered teams of firefighters to help join an international effort to extinguish the fires.
Yousef Nassar, the director general of the Palestinian Civil Defense, said the offer was “a humanitarian message.” The Palestinians assisted Israel during a deadly wildfire in 2010.
Israeli police arrested 13 people on Friday on suspicion of arson, authorities said, after massive wildfires tore through central and northern Israel, a conflagration that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu branded as “terrorism”.
Firefighters kept battling the flames in wooded hills around Jerusalem and in northern areas on Friday, with support from Palestinian firemen and emergency teams from Greece, Cyprus, Croatia, Italy, Russia and Turkey.
Netanyahu said he had also accepted offers of help from Egypt and Jordan.
Unseasonably dry weather and easterly winds helped kindle the fires, which erupted on Tuesday and now stretch across half the country.
Arson appeared to be behind some of the blazes, Netanyahu said. “A price will be paid for this arson-terrorism,” he told reporters on Friday. He said the arson was carried out by “elements with great hostility toward Israel.”
“We cannot tell yet if this is organized, but we can see a number of cells operating,” Netanyahu said.
Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said a dozen people had been detained either while attempting to set fires or fleeing the area, but he provided no further details. Internal Security Minister Gilad Erdan told reporters 13 people were arrested.
Erdan said those arrested were “minorities”, an allusion to either Arab Israeli citizens or Palestinians. “The highest likelihood is that the motive is nationalistic,” Erdan told Army Radio. Police, however, stopped short of declaring any motive.