NAZARETH, (PIC)
Fires broke out on Monday night in a number of settlement outposts following a barrage of rockets fired by Lebanese Hezbollah toward the Upper Galilee and the occupied Golan.
Hebrew media reported that Israeli firefighting teams had been striving to gain control over the massive fires that continued to break out in several locations until Tuesday morning.
According to Israeli media sources, fires remained burning overnight in the vicinity of a number of settlements, especially Kiryat Shmona in the Upper Galilee.
The spread of fires required the intervention of a large number of firefighting teams as well as forces of the Israeli army and police in an attempt to extinguish and gain control of the fire. Many residents were evacuated from Kiryat Shmona and other settlements in the Upper Galilee and the occupied Syrian Golan.
The Israeli army said that six reserve soldiers were injured due to smoke inhalation following the fires that erupted in the northern regions, adding that it increased number of reserve forces and engineering tools in an effort to control the fires that coincided with very hot weather, with temperatures exceeding 43 Celsius.
The fires consumed parts of some homes in Kiryat Shmona, Margaliot and other settlements, and were still burning as of Monday evening in more than 15 locations in the Galilee and the occupied Golan.
The Israeli police closed several roads in the Upper Galilee due to the fires, which according to Israeli Nature and Parks Authority spread to at least 10,000 dunums.
In addition to threatening residential neighborhoods in some settlements, media reports indicated that the fire approached at least one Israeli military base.
Israeli Channel 12 said that firefighting teams managed to prevent the spread of fires to a military site in the Upper Galilee.
Netanyahu’s government faced major internal criticism for its failure to quickly contain the fires, as Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid said that the north is going up in flames and Israeli deterrence is burning with it.
Lapid slammed Netanyahu’s government for being a government of complete chaos, saying “The government has no plan for the day after war in Gaza, no plan to bring the residents back to the north, no management, and no strategy.”
