Saturday saw a spate of 11 fires in fields in the Eshkol Regional Council in the western Negev.
Concern that the area was being targeted by a new wave of arson terrorism from the Gaza Strip was compounded by the fact that terrorist leaders in the Gaza Strip have recently been threatening to resume sending explosives-laden balloons over the Gaza border fence into communities in southern Israel.
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The threats might not be empty – shortly after the fires were first reported, security personnel spotted balloons being inflated on the Gazan side of the border fence, approximately half a kilometer (0.3 miles) from the locations of the fires.
However, an arson investigator with the Fire and Rescue Services investigated the sites of the two biggest fires, which broke out at Kibbutz Beeri and Kibbutz Nir Am, and determined that the fires "bore clear signs of arson, and have nothing to do with the balloons."
Security forces and firefighters managed to contain the blazes. No injuries were reported.
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