The suspect who set fire to Pennsylvania's Jewish Governor Josh Shapiro's residence was motivated by the governor's pro-Israel positions, ABC reported on Wednesday. The arson attack occurred late Sunday night, hours after a Passover Seder celebration and while Shapiro's family was inside the residence.

Court documents reveal that the suspect, 38-year-old Cody Balmer, committed the act "because of what he perceived as injustice toward the Palestinian people." Investigation findings show that less than an hour after the incident, Balmer called emergency services and told the dispatcher he "would not take part in Shapiro's plans regarding what he wants to do to Palestinians."

Though police have not officially released information about the motive, one of the search warrants stated that Balmer targeted Shapiro because of "injustices toward Palestinians."

Earlier this week, investigators revealed that Balmer admitted during questioning that "he harbors hatred toward Governor Shapiro," according to court documents. Balmer told investigators that if he had found Shapiro, he would have struck him with the hammer he was carrying.

According to court documents obtained by the New York Post, Balmer confessed to draining fuel from a lawnmower and filling two beer bottles with it to create improvised Molotov cocktails. The suspect walked approximately an hour from his home to the governor's mansion, scaled the perimeter iron fence, broke two windows using a hammer, and threw the firebombs inside.

The attack took place Sunday at 2 a.m. while Shapiro and his family were asleep in the residence. The governor and his family, along with another family staying at the house, were safely evacuated by state police, and no injuries were reported. Just hours before the attack, Shapiro had shared a photograph of his family's Passover Seder table on social media.

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A Pennsylvania man has been charged with multiple felonies, including attempted murder and terrorism, after turning himself into authorities for setting fire to the Governor's Residence while Governor Josh Shapiro and his family were inside following their Passover seder, CBS News reports. The suspect admitted to investigators he was "harboring hatred" toward the governor, according to court documents filed in Dauphin County.

Cody Balmer, 38, of Harrisburg, voluntarily surrendered to authorities after allegedly jumping a fence and deliberately starting the fire around 2 a.m. on April 13. According to charging documents, Pennsylvania State Police were contacted by a woman who described Balmer as her "ex-paramour" and told officers he had confessed to her and wanted to be turned in to police.

Shortly after the woman's report, Balmer went directly to the Pennsylvania State Police Headquarters on Elmerton Avenue in Harrisburg and, according to court documents, told a trooper he had set the fire and wanted to surrender himself. The Shapiro family had just celebrated the first night of Passover inside the residence the evening before the attack. The governor confirmed Sunday that no one was injured.

Court documents show Balmer has been charged with criminal homicide (attempted murder), terrorism, aggravated arson, aggravated assault, burglary, and additional offenses. Following his arraignment Monday evening, a judge denied bail. Pennsylvania State Police stated earlier Monday that Balmer received medical treatment at a hospital for "a medical event not related to this incident or his arrest."

Last night at the Governor's Residence, we experienced an attack not just on our family, but on the entire Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

This kind of violence has become far too common in our society, and it has to stop. pic.twitter.com/5HP5JSvgfc

— Governor Josh Shapiro (@GovernorShapiro) April 13, 2025

 During police questioning after his surrender, Balmer admitted he harbored hatred toward Shapiro, removed gasoline from a lawn mower, poured it into beer bottles, walked an hour to the Governor's Residence, and threw the homemade Molotov cocktails into the home, the criminal complaint states. Balmer acknowledged to investigators he knew the Shapiro family might be home at the time.

When asked what he would have done if confronted by the governor inside the residence, Balmer reportedly told police he would have "beaten him with his hammer." During a search of Balmer's home, investigators discovered the sledgehammer seen in surveillance footage, along with clothes Balmer wore during the attack.

Governor Shapiro expressed gratitude on social media Monday, stating: "This weekend, our family witnessed the incredible bravery and excellence of our first responders. The entire Shapiro family is eternally grateful for the @PAStatePolice troopers who safely evacuated our family from danger, the firefighters who quickly put out the fire at the Governor's Residence, and the law enforcement officials who've worked to investigate this attack."

Harrisburg Fire Chief Brian Enterline estimated the damage to the historic residence will cost millions. The 29,000-square-foot home, completed in 1968 along the Susquehanna River waterfront, houses numerous historic artworks and furniture pieces.

"[Balmer] is a domestic terrorist," Enterline declared. "And I hope he spends a lot of time behind jail for the heinous acts that he performed here in our capital city that put not only the first family, but my firefighters at risk."

President Donald Trump condemned the attack from the Oval Office on Monday. "The attacker basically wasn't a fan of anybody, probably just a whack job," Trump said. "And certainly a thing like that cannot be allowed to happen."

Pennsylvania State Police Lieutenant Colonel George Bivens explained Sunday that before turning himself in, the suspected arsonist had scaled a fence and "evaded troopers" searching the property before the fire started. Security footage captured a man, later confirmed to be Balmer, breaking a window in the residence's piano room and throwing a homemade Molotov cocktail inside. Court documents indicate Balmer then broke another window, entered the residence, and ignited another incendiary device in the dining room.

Balmer, a longtime Harrisburg resident, served eight years as a construction equipment repairer in the Army Reserve, according to an Army spokesperson cited by CBS News. Public records suggest an unstable background, including custody disputes over his children and a near home foreclosure.

Christie Balmer, the suspect's mother, told CBS News that her son is "mentally ill and he went off his medication" before attacking the Governor's Residence, claiming she had unsuccessfully tried to get her son "picked up" by four different police departments last week. "So he was mentally ill, went off his meds, and this is what happened," she said.

Balmer's next court appearance is scheduled for April 23. State police officials have launched a security review of the incident.

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After the Oct. 7 massacre, our nation burns physically, our hearts scorched alongside it. This is Hezbollah from the north, the government's failure and helplessness – but not only that. It is also the Palestinians among us, from within the West Bank, setting the landscapes of our homeland ablaze these days. Whoever torches this land does not love it, proves themselves unworthy of it. The trees, greenery, and landscapes going up in flames – this is not their cherished homeland but the scenery of the land they despise.

Abundant signs suggest this arson wave, like those of 2021, 2019, and 2016 before it, represents another mutation of Palestinian terror. There are Palestinians whose hearts swell watching forests, fields, cypresses, pines, and olive groves consumed, reduced to layers of ashen gray. Many revel at the sight of their "stolen lands" immolated into scorched black fields.

Some Palestinians have been gripped by a deranged, maddening spirit – the sight of trunks and verdure turned to charred skeletons fills them with sick satisfaction. I've known some like this. They struggled to conceal their pyromanic glee, leaving traces online. While for most, hearts sour watching homes incinerated, residents fleeing ruin, theirs raced with twisted excitement and joy. They are of the "if I can't have it, neither will you" ilk, like the mother in Solomon's judgment willing to have the baby cut in two, thus revealing she was not its true mother. Mere pretenders, they.

Whoever immolates this land's landscapes proves themselves not its rightful child. So did those who years ago lobbed stun grenades into West Bank springs to attack bathing Jews. Precisely this zero-sum mentality animated some Arab Israelis three years ago in Operation Guardian of the Walls, adamantly refusing to condemn Hamas rockets killing Khalil Awad, 52, and his daughter Nadine, 16, in Lod. Arab students at Jerusalem's David Yellin College behaved likewise, refusing to denounce the murders of peers from Triangle villages in a bus bombing years before.

Perhaps the Palestinian Authority will again offer firefighters to combat the flames ravaging and wounding the land. Do not be overly impressed. The poison and hateful bonfires it stokes in students' hearts, textbooks, and official television prove far more inflammatory.

One who genuinely loves this land and its native vistas, Jew or Arab, does not reduce them to cinders.
The blood of burnt trees cries to the heavens, wrote poet Anda Pinkerfeld Amir of Arab arsonists during the 1929 riots torching forests, vineyards, and orchards.

With mangled fists

Each blackening flame howls its grievance

Oh, what did you do, wrongful hands

Deaf and blind hands?

Sometimes, no argument over rightful ownership is needed. Whoever burns this soil testifies loudly enough about the nature of their bond to it.

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More than 25,000 dunams (over 6,100 acres) of woodlands consumed by fires; thousands of residents evacuated from their homes – including dozens of patients and staff at the Eitanim psychiatric hospital; thousands of dead and wounded animals; damages to homes and farms. That is just the initial estimate of the damage caused by the massive forest fire in the Jerusalem hills this week.

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Fire and Rescue Service Commissioner David Simchi said the fire was of the same dimensions as the 2010 Mount Carmel forest fire disaster, and the fact that there was no loss of life this time around was a major achievement. But many argue that the writing was on the wall, and raise several difficult questions regarding the preparedness of the fire and rescue services, the shortfall in personnel, the skills possessed by the fire fighters, the availability of firefighting planes, and the conduct of the fire service senior echelons.

"In the final outcome all the billions spent by the state of Israel on the firefighting service since the Mount Carmel disaster did not have the required effect," says L., a senior firefighter from the Jerusalem District who took part in the firefighting efforts this week. "Planes and a few new fire trucks can't be the game changer in the face of fires of that scale. The fire service needs at least twice as much manpower than it currently has, otherwise we can't deal with fires like this quickly and efficiently.

"The top brass says that there are 2,200 active firefighters. We need at least 5,000. Fixing the damages caused by these fires costs a lot more than 2,500 firefighters."

Q: What do you think was wrong with the way this week's fires were handled?

"In the evening hours of Sunday, the first day of the fires, the commissioner declared that the fire was under control, despite weather conditions that pointed to the event being far from over. He made a mistake in his situational evaluation.

"At night the fires die down because there are no winds, but in the morning, I and others involved, including personnel from the firefighting plane squadron, requested that all the planes be sent up, not just some of them, but the commissioner refused. In the afternoon the winds picked up and the fires renewed. The forces on the ground were exhausted and there were only a few planes in the air - and then they called for more forces and even spoke about international aid.

"When additional forces arrived there as chaos on the ground, Firefighters got lost and it was a miracle that a disaster didn't happen. In events like that it is the police that are in charge, but the commissioner refused to sit with them in the command and control center so we end up with two command and control centers, one for the fire service and the other for the police. Things just got messier.

"In my opinion, the reason for all of that was a mistaken situational evaluation and misunderstanding of the weather conditions. The area was split up into six sectors, and four of them were given to firefighting officers who came from the army and don't have any knowledge of firefighting. The most difficult sector, around Kibbutz Tzuba, was given to the commander of the firefighters training college, an infantry officer, who came to the fire service about a year ago from the army.

"It's about time that events like these undergo an investigation by external professionals who have no interest in a cover-up. The inquiries regarding previous disasters such as the fires in Nof HaGalil and Mevo Modiim don't reflect reality. Unfortunately, that's what's likely to happen this time around as well."

Those aren't the only claims about improper coordination between the fire service and the police. "On Monday, while the fire was burning out of control and residents were being evacuated from their homes, police and fire service representatives couldn't even decide in which command and control center they would sit," says a person in the fire service. "At the end of the day the two bodies set up two command and control centers, and low-level officers from each body were sent to meetings and situational assessments. Regional commanders, the police commissioner and the fire service commissioner didn't sit together to conduct a joint situational assessment, except for one occasion when the incident began, and even then, the only thing that interested them was how they were going to be photographed for the press.

"The result was a complete lack of coordination between the police and the fire service. The police said roads should be closed; the fire service wanted them kept open. The firefighting plane squadron wanted aircraft in the air; the fire service was opposed. There was no dialogue, commands coming down to the ground were contradictory, and meanwhile everything was burning.

There were also accusations of fighting between the various bodies over the role of the fire fighting plane squadron. Israel's aerial firefighting unit falls under the command of the Israel Police and is composed of members of the aerial unit of the Israel Police, the field unit of the National Fire and Rescue Authority, and civilian companies Elbit and Clear-Cut Aviation.

This complexity, say senior fire and rescue officials speaking off the record, leads to a clash of egos between the police and the fire service, and this often creates disputes and delays in getting planes in the air.

"Managing aerial operations is extremely complex," says chief superintendent  Tomer Brenner, the firefighting squadron commander. "There are a lot of different bodies involved that have to work together. Sometimes it works smoothly, sometimes things are more difficult. Sometimes people agree and sometimes they don't.

"I always try to make the best decision for the State of Israel. If we hadn't acted as we did during the fire, six communities would have been burned to the ground."

Q: What actions did you take?

"Our planes have a limited capacity to carry fire retardants, so it is best that they take off as soon as the fire is spotted. We received a report of a fire on Sunday at 3:15 p.m. via a civilian who reported it to the fire service. We were sent in by the fire service as part of a procedure called "liberal take-off." The procedure which was the result of the lessons of previous incidents, states that in areas where it will take fire trucks too long to get to the scene, planes can be sent up first.

"We sent up two planes, and I managed the incident from the command and control center. I opened the window and saw the cloud of smoke. The first report was that the fire was advancing at a pace of one kilometer every ten minutes due to weather conditions. The implications of this are a very complex event, and immediately sent up all the remaining places in the squadron, 12 altogether. The planes worked until nightfall."

A senior fire service source claims that the following morning the squadron wanted to send up all its planes, but the fire service commission believed there was no need to do so.

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"In the afternoon the fire grew very strong, and it was decided to use all the air power available in Israel. International aid was also considered. On Tuesday we went at the fire as quickly as possible and managed to gain control."

Q: Are there things you feel you should have done differently?

 "I would do a lot of things differently but I prefer to debrief them with the relevant professional authorities and not in the media."

Q: Are there plans to increase the size of the squadron so that you will be able to deal with large fires?

We are in the midst of a process of purchasing planes with a larger payload capacity. It's a very complex issue that depends on the state budget and other factors. The order is supposed to go out soon, but even then, it will take two years for the planes to arrive."

Failings in dealing with fires in Israel are nothing new. Only last month, senior former fire service officers, municipal chiefs, firefighters, safety experts, residents and volunteers   about a severe shortage of manpower and equipment, delays in operations of firefighting planes, misunderstanding of ground conditions, and an absence of operational plans. They all warned that, "it's a question of when, not if, a disaster will happen." Over and again, we heard the words: "Don't let anyone say they didn't know."

At the beginning of June, three large fires, apparently caused by arson, burned out of control in the Jerusalem Hills. The cost was heavy: Thousands of dunams of woodland were consumed by the fires and dozens of residents of nearby communities were evacuated.

Doron (not his real name), a firefighter from Jerusalem, was called to fires in Tzur Hadassah and Ma'aleh Hahamisha when they were already out of control. "The fire could have been doused within an hour," says Doron. "There was no need to reach a situation where teams from around the country had to be called in to fight the fire.

In my district, what happens on a regular basis is that the officer managing an incident conducts a situational assessment, asks for ten firefighting teams and then gets barely five, because someone is saving on budgets and there is a manpower shortage. You have to beg. At the fire in Har Haruach and Ma'aleh Hahamisha we asked for ten teams, but we got three. At a fire near Moshav Ora, it was a miracle that the moshav wasn't burnt down. We asked for firefighting planes and crews, but we didn't get them."

Q: Why does it take two hours for planes to get to the scene?

The fire service has an agreement with Elbit Systems, which operates the firefighting squadron and is paid per work hour and on call hours. Somebody gambled and let the pilots be on call from home rather than from the base so that it would cost less. If the pilots had been on call at the base, they would have got to the scene within 15 minutes."

The Carmel disaster in December 2010 was a turning point with respect to firefighting in Israel. The previously municipal fire departments were all brought under the Israel Fire and Rescue Authority Law and placed under the purview of the Public Security Ministry, and the fire and rescue designated a commissioner, giving him full operational authority.

The commission received large budgets and a firefighting squadron with 14 places each able to carry 3,000 liters of fire retardant. The planes are stationed at two permanent run strips: Meggido in the North and Kedma in the South. Last year they handled over 200 fires in open areas. According to the Fire and Rescue Authority, since the Carmel Disaster some 300 fire and rescue vehicles adaptable to all scenarios have been purchased.

In 2014, the Knesset drafted regulations covering the protection of communities from forest fires, however due to budgetary disagreements between various government offices, the ordinances have yet to be approved. In 2015, then-State Comptroller Joseph Shapira released a report on the preparations of municipal authorities for fires and weather-related hazards. Shapira wrote that the "existing infrastructure does not give any entity the authority to enforce upon local authorities' compliance with instructions regarding emergency situations including fires and extraordinary weather-related damages. The preparedness of local authorities for such situations depends on their desire to comply with given instructions and on the resources, they choose to allocate. Some local authorities are not prepared and are not properly prepared or equipped for fires."

The State Comptroller also issued a report in June of this year that painted a difficult picture regarding preparedness for fires in Israel: "Over 40,000 fires occur in Israel every year, on average 100 a day. There are 126 firefighting stations around the country; 1,641 firefighters and commanders man 72% of the operational standard. There is a shortage of 1,675 firefighters to reach the target set by the Authority."

Figures presented by the Fire and Rescue Authority show a slightly different picture with 2,200 fighters and 1,000 support personnel.

A report by the Knesset research center in September 2017 stated that Israel has 120 fire stations and is short 105 stations to reach the optimal number.

"To put it simply – there is no money," says Haim Rokach, head of the Golan Regional Council and head of safety and emergency preparedness at the Federation of Regional Councils. "We are supposed to create firebreaks, thin forests, place fire-fighting systems around communities, prepare fire trails, put in fire hydrants. It will cost millions.

"I'm not ashamed to say that I'm scared. A Technion report filed in 2012 at the request of the Ministry of the Interior found that the required response time of a fire truck is seven minutes, while the longest it should take is 15 minutes, but we don't meet those standards. We are simply being abandoned."

Yosef Ben Yosef, CEO of the Yavniel local council, left the fire service a year and half ago after 30 years. His last position was commander of the Tiberias fire station.

He says that the Carmel disaster caused positive shock waves in the fire service. "We were moved to the Ministry of Public Security; the firefighting squadron was established and so was an academy for training firefighters. I was part of a program to train firefighters in the French system called Forest Fire Defense, which includes five levels of training for commanders in command and control of fires in open ground and forests. The training was funded by the European Union. Several groups of firefighters, officers and commanders went through the program. A computerized firefighting system and a simulator were put into use, with technological adaptations made for local conditions.

"In 2017, when the new commissioner David Simchi took up his position, he claimed that isn't the way to teach and the program was stopped. But no other method has been introduced. So in one go, the professional issue and in particular the issue of firefighting programs was shunted aside. But the recent fires in the Jerusalem Hills prove that preparation is required: preparation of scenarios and action modes. You can't be responsive and just rely on luck.

Worse yet, the number of new people employed at headquarters is completely disproportionate to the number of firefighters. The State Comptroller noted that there are too many support staff and not enough firefighters. The new commissioner was uncomfortable with the worker's committee and decided to fight them. This led to a lack of trust between the command echelon and the operational level. When the firefighters don't believe in the commander, they don't do what they know how to do best – put out fires."

Yuval (not his real name) is the head of a fire station in the center of the country. He too believes that the shortcomings are a result of mismanagement of manpower. "At my station, and at other stations as well, the firefighters no longer receive overtime, even on days with extreme weather conditions when we need to beef up teams.

"The standard set by the United States Fire Administration (which is a professional beacon to fire authorities worldwide) is one firefighter per one thousand residents. According to this standard I should have 400 firefighters, but I have just 100. That means that I am working much of the time under the red line of minimal operational readiness. If there is a fire and I send teams, I am left exposed in the area I am responsible for.

"What's more, what happens to a firefighter when there is no overtime? His fighting spirit is low. The commissioner's fight against the firefighters really hit them hard and there is no lack of incidents where there were failures as a result."

The 2015 State Comptroller's report lists a series of steps to be taken by localities: preparation of buffer lines and perimeter access roads; maintenance of access roads to communities and maintenance of the main roads within them; peripheral water supply lines with fire hydrants 100 meters (328 feet) apart, a fire-fighting equipment stockpile in every locality, and more.

The report states: "The State Comptroller's Office believes that in view of the danger presented by fires to localities close to or within forests, the Ministry of Public Security and the Ministry of the Interior, together with the Finance Ministry, the Federation of Local Authorities and the Federation of Regional Councils must act with haste to authorize ordinances to defend the localities against forest fires. Any delay in providing a defensive envelope for the localities and roads, and in establishing firefighting stockpiles could lead to loss of life and damage to property."

Alon Biton, the security officer of the Federation of Local Authorities, believes that the solution is to have one body that is responsible for the issue. "A government body operating under the Ministry of the Interior that will connect between the various government ministries and define their authority.  The goal is to approve and budget a master plan for fire readiness, especially with regard to buffer lines. To define security rings, decide what types of trees can be planted within each locality, and create national priorities for the localities depending on their degree of risk.

"After the fire in Nof HaGalil, we set up a pilot program to establish buffer lines according to the guidelines. I hope this will be followed up with practical steps, but without budgets it's all just talk. No local authority can afford those kinds of costs. I hope the new Knesset will find the required funds."

Keren Kayemet LeIsrael-Jewish National Fund [the body that administers Israel's forests] isn't waiting for the regulator to allocate budgets. "After the Carmel Disaster we established buffer lines between forests and communities next to forests in more than 400 sectors covering 30,000 dunams [7,400 acres]," says Gilad Ostrovsky, director of forestry at KKL-JNF. "In some places we also set up buffer lines within forests to prevent fires from spreading and enable access to fire and rescue service vehicles. We also brought in Beduin shepherds from the south to graze with their herds and get rid of the dry grasses that could become flammable materials.

"We have 24 of our own fire trucks operated by KKL-JNF employees. From the start of the fire season on May 1, we have lookouts watching over the forests to detect fires quickly. We are also building a master plan for all the forests which takes into account research on how fires behave differently in different places."

Q: Why isn't there a ban on lighting fires in forests?

"On days where we receive fire warnings from the meteorological service, we put out a notice to the public that it is forbidden to light fires in the forests. We have rangers on patrol, but we are talking about very large areas and we don't have the authority to give fines. We are working on a "Forest Law" that will give us the authority to give out fines. I hope we will manage to pass it in the current Knesset."

Simchi said in July that "what I have improved in the past four years hasn't been done in 40 years. We have added 500 new firefighters, including 80 from the Arab sector, and we have recruited Arab citizens to national service as firefighting support personnel.

"I set up a research and development division. One of the products of its work is the addition of chemical retardants to water which has made firefighting with water hoses much more efficient. A year ago, I put robots into use for life endangering missions, and we are shortly planning to launch a pilot program employing drones, UAVs and ground cameras to locate fires in real time.

"Our squadron operates, according to our operational concept, only in the summer season, and responds to fires by classification: saving lives, homes, and then nature. In high fire index situations, we put planes in the air to detect fires before they spread. In high-risk areas we put planes in the air before the fire trucks.

"The firefighting budget is NIS 1.4 billion [$432 million] per year, of which NIS 70 million [$22 million] is allocated to the firefighting squadron. I have to manage those resources. There is a limitation of flying hours. In situational assessments we look at whether there is a danger to a locality, and whether there is a need for the squadron elsewhere. I have to meet the cost-benefit test, and manage national risks."

The National Fire and Rescue Authority said in response: "We do not intend to address false allegations based on cheap gossip, at best, on behalf of self-interested parties driven by extraneous considerations. The development of firefighting in recent years has nothing to do with all of this. These allegations are part of repeated attempts to harm the senior fire service command, officers and firefighters, while purposely ignoring reality, and facts on the ground."

No response was available from the Israel Police.

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Algeria has blamed Morocco and Israel for deadly forest fires that killed dozens of people in the country.

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In a statement, President Abdelmadjid Tebboune has said most of the fires that have burned through the mountainous Berber region of the North African country were the result of arson, reported the AFP.

"The incessant hostile acts carried out by Morocco against Algeria have necessitated the review of relations between the two countries," the presidency statement said.

It said there would also be an "intensification of security controls on the western borders" with Morocco.

According to the statement, officials have arrested suspects from two organizations designated as terrorist groups it said were receiving support from Israel and Morocco, according to a report in The Times of Israel.

Algerian authorities have blamed the fires on the MAK independence movement of the mainly Berber region of Kabylie, which extends along the Mediterranean coast east of the capital Algiers. The MAK denied that it was involved in the fires.

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Meanwhile, 61 people have been arrested in Algeria over the lynching and burning of a man falsely accused of arson, with some of those detained confessing to being members of MAK.

This article was first published by i24NEWS.

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Israel Fire and Rescue Services Commissioner Dedi Simchi has informed Public Security Minister Omer Bar-lev that there is no reason to call in the cavalry to help contain the massive wildfires that erupted around Jerusalem on Sunday, and that Israel can cancel requests for assistance from Greece, Cyprus, Italy, and France.

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During a tour of the fire areas, Simchi and Bar-lev met with firefighters and expressed appreciation for their devoted word.

Chief of the Jerusalem District Fire and Rescue Services Nissim Twito said, "in the next few hours, with comfortable weather and high humidity, we will make a concentrated effort to put out the localized fires still burning in Shoeva, Beit Meir, Ramat Raziel, Eitanim, and Givat Yaarim."

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While Israel is cautiously optimistic it can forgo international aid, the Israeli Air Force has been called up, with Super-Hercules aircraft scrambled into service to dump flame retardant on the active fires.

This is a trial, as the aircraft were not intended to be used for fighting fires, but the IAF has agreed to send them in.

The fire has burned some 5,000 acres of forested land on the outskirts of Jerusalem since it erupted Sunday afternoon has died down somewhat.

"The fire subsided overnight, but there are still lots of localized fires close to communities," an Israel Police official announced, adding that residents of the evacuated Givat Yaarim and Kibbutz Tzova were still under orders to stay away. The fires have damaged the electricity grid close to both communities.

"There are several locations where low-level fires are still burning. All in all, the situation is contained, I hope I will be the bearer of good news today," Simhi said in an interview to Kan Bet Radio.

As of Tuesday morning, Highway 395 was still closed in both directions. Residents of Ramat Raziel and Kislon were allowed to use the road to get home if they showed proof of address. Highway 386 was shut down out of concern that the fire could spread to the road. Highway 3955 between Shoeva Square and Beir Meir was open.

On Monday evening, after the fires forced thousands of residents of communities west of Jerusalem to evacuate their homes, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett ordered Bar-Lev and the National Security Council to reach out for international help getting the fire under control.

Bennett also instructed the Defense Ministry and the IDF to do all they could to help the firefighting, evacuation, and rescue efforts. He also said that the possibility of calling in the Israeli Air Force to supply additional air support should be examined.

"We cannot hesitate when it comes to evacuating communities and people, we need to take an aggressive approach and get everyone out," Bennett said, stressing that the number one priority was saving lives.

Foreign Minister Yair Lapid spoke with his Greek counterpart, Nikos Dendias, on Monday and asked Dendias to prepare to send firefighting aircraft to Israel. The Greek foreign minister promised that Athens would do all it could to help. Lapid's office also reached out to Cyprus, France, and Italy to ask for aid fighting the fire.

Later Monday, the Fire and Rescue Services announced that residents of Kibbutz Tzuba, Ein Naquba, and Ein Rafah could return home, but residents of Givat Yaarim were still under orders to stay away.

Discussing the fire, which erupted Sunday, Bar-lev and Simchi said they hoped that to "finish the event" by Tuesday. Simchi compared the Jerusalem fire to the Carmel forest fires of 2010 in scope. By Monday evening, nearly 20,000 dunams (nearly 5,000 acres) had gone up in flames.

Simchi confirmed that the fire had been caused by people, although whether it was a case of negligence or arson was still unclear.

"We will continue to investigate and the moment there are results, we will hand them over to the appropriate people. There are 88 firefighting teams that can keep working tomorrow [Tuesday], as well," Simchi said, adding that the personnel had already been in action for 30 hours straight.

"Until the fire is completely out, there is concern that small ones could reignite," the commissioner explained.

Earlier Monday, it had appeared that Hadassah Ein Karem Medical Center might have to be evacuated. Luckily, Simchi said, firefighting aircraft had prevented the fire from reaching the medical complex.

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Three large wildfires churned across Greece on Saturday, with one threatening whole towns and cutting a line across Evia, the country's second-largest island, isolating its northern part. Others engulfed forested mountainsides and skirted ancient sites, leaving behind a trail of destruction that one official described as "a biblical catastrophe."

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A flotilla of 10 ships – two Coast Guard patrols, two ferries, two passenger ships and four fishing boats – waited at the seaside resort of Pefki, near the northern tip of Evia, ready to evacuate more residents and tourists if needed, a Coast Guard spokeswoman told The Associated Press, on customary condition of anonymity.

Firefighters were fighting through the night to save Istiaia, a town of 7,000 in northern Evia, as well as several villages, using bulldozers to open up clear paths in the thick forest.

The fire on Evia forced the hasty Friday night evacuation of about 1,400 people from a seaside village and island beaches by a motley assortment of boats after the approaching flames cut off other means of escape.

The other dangerous fires were one in Greece's southern Peloponnese peninsula, near Ancient Olympia and one in Fokida, in the Central Greece Region, north of Athens. The fire in Ancient Olympia moved east, away from the ancient site, threatening villages in a sudden flare-up Saturday afternoon.

North of Athens, the fire on Mount Parnitha, a national park with substantial forests, was still burning with occasional flare-ups, but a Fire Service spokesman told the AP late Saturday that containment efforts were "going well." Deputy Civil Protection Minister Nikos Hardalias told reporters Saturday night that firefighters hoped to contain the fire Sunday.

Smoke from that fire was still spreading across the Athens basin. Earlier, the blaze had sent choking smoke across the Greek capital, where authorities set up a hotline for residents with breathing problems.

One volunteer firefighter died Friday and at least 20 people have been treated in hospitals over the last week during Greece's most intense heat wave in three decades. Temperatures soared up to 45 degrees Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit).

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis on Saturday visited the fire department's headquarters in Athens and expressed his "deep sadness" for the firefighter's death. He later visited the airport, west of Athens, from which firefighting planes take off and thanked the pilots, Greek as well as French, who arrived to support the firefighting effort.

Securing aid for everyone affected by the wildfires will be "my first political priority," he said, promising that all burnt areas would be reforested.

"When this nightmarish summer has passed, we will turn all our attention to repairing the damage as fast as possible, and in restoring our natural environment again," Mitsotakis said.

A local official in the Mani area of southern Peloponnese, south of Sparta, estimated the wildfire there had destroyed around 70% of her area.

"It's a biblical catastrophe. We're talking about three-quarters of the municipality," East Mani Deputy Mayor Eleni Drakoulakou told state broadcaster ERT, pleading for more water-dropping aircraft.

Other officials and residents in southern Greece phoned in to TV programs, appealing live on air for more firefighting help.

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Greece requested help through the European Union's emergency support system. Firefighters and aircraft were sent from France, Spain, Ukraine, Cyprus, Croatia, Sweden, Israel, Poland, Romania, Switzerland and the United States.

On Saturday alone, Germany's Disaster Assistance agency tweeted that 52 firefighters and 17 vehicles from Bonn and 164 firemen and 27 vehicles from Hessen were heading to Athens to help. Egypt said it was sending two helicopters, while 36 Czech firefighters with 15 vehicles left for Greece.

The causes of the fires are under investigation. Three people were arrested Friday – in the greater Athens area, central and southern Greece – on suspicion of starting blazes, in two cases intentionally.

Another person, a 47-year-old Greek, was arrested Saturday afternoon in the Athens suburb of Petroupoli for lighting two fires in a grove and setting four dumpsters on fire, police said.

Greek and European officials also have blamed climate change for the large number of fires burning through southern Europe, from southern Italy to the Balkans, Greece and Turkey.

Fires described as the worst in decades have swept through stretches of Turkey's southern coast for the past 10 days, killing eight people. The top Turkish forestry official said 217 fires had been brought under control since July 28 in over half of the country's provinces, but firefighters still worked Saturday to tame six fires in two provinces.

In Turkey's seaside province of Mugla, a popular region for tourists, some fires appeared to be under control Saturday but the forestry minister said blazes were still burning in the Milas area. Environmental groups urged authorities to protect the forests of Sandras Mountain from nearby fires.

Further north, at least six neighborhoods were evacuated due to a wildfire in western Aydin province, where shifting winds were making containment efforts difficult, Turkish media reported.

Municipal officials in Antalya, on Turkey's Mediterranean coast, said a wildfire was still burning around the Eynif plain, where wild horses live.

Massive fires also have been burning across Siberia in northern Russia for weeks, forcing the evacuation Saturday of a dozen villages. In all, wildfires have burned nearly 15 million acres this year in Russia.

In the US, hot, bone-dry, gusty weather has also fueled devastating wildfires in California.

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One day after he was nearly brutally beaten in the woods, Israel Hayom returned to the Khurvat Se'adim nature reserve outside Jerusalem with Kohelet Policy Forum Executive Director Meir Rubin.

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On Friday, Rubin and his family had been camping out at the reserve. Around 7:30 p.m., they noticed a fire burning around 200 yards from where they had been sitting.

According to Rubin, he called the police and the fire department to report the blaze, which he suspected was the result of arson. Rubin quickly ran to the access road leading into the reserve to take pictures of vehicles leaving the area.

Rubin managed to photograph three different vehicles, the last of which abruptly braked next to him. The passengers asked why he was taking their picture. When he explained he was taking pictures of everyone leaving the site because of the fire, they cursed him in Arabic. They were about to exit the car but drove off when they noticed Rubin was armed.

Rubin then rejoined his family. After pitching the family's tent, however, Ruben felt something was off.

"I had a bad feeling. I didn't go to sleep. Around 10:30 at night, I suddenly heard noises. I turned my flashlight on and asked, 'Who's there?'" I heard steps growing farther away, and a few seconds leader, I suddenly saw a fire 10 meters (yards) wide 20 to 30 meters from me. The fire started at once. It was the middle of the night. No one was there. No one was barbequing, there was no lighting or thunder. Someone had started the fire."

Rubin got his family out of the tent and called the fire department to report the blaze. Just as they were getting into their car, a white GMC Savana stopped in front of their car, blocking it. There was another car behind the van.

"Two guys got out of the Savana and started heading in my direction, and someone else holding a long flashlight got out of the other car. They closed in on me, and I kept shouting at them, "The police are on their way. Get out of here!' But they didn't stop. I realized I only had a few seconds. My family was in the car, and I couldn't escape. I realized we were in a life-threatening situation," he said.

With the three men refusing to heed his calls, Rubin was forced to pull out his gun. Immediately, the men got into their cars and began to drive. They tried to block Rubin farther down the road but he succeeded in overtaking them and getting away.

"I drove to Jerusalem on the winding road, and they were following me in full force. I saw them trying to get close enough to me to ram me and take me off the road," he said. It was only when Rubin approached the entrance to the city that he noticed a police patrol car and told the officer what had just happened.

The officer responded by taking Rubin's car keys and gun and making sure he hadn't fired any shots by checking all the bullets were still inside. According to Rubin, it was only after one of the attackers approached him once more, raising his hand in a fist and threatening him in Arabic, that the officer gave him back his gun and keys and told him to leave.

"I got home. I put my children to bed, and I realized I had been saved from a brutal beating that could have killed me. It was only the next day that I realized from the police response these terrorists had gone to the police and filed a complaint saying that I had threatened them. The police are treating it as just different complaints. This was an attempted murder. Period. There is no reason for a normative person to walk to the forest, and by chance, after they walked around there, for there to be a wall of flames. Someone set the woods ablaze, and mere minutes later, someone blocked my car. If I hadn't taken out the weapons, I wouldn't be here and maybe my children wouldn't be here either."

Rubin said he planned to file a complaint with the police against the attackers on Monday.

In a statement, the Jerusalem District Police stood by their response.

"In contrast to what has been claimed, police forces were called to the scene by the youths. Upon the forces' arrival at the scene, the parties were questioned, and they were informed of the possibility of filing a complaint. Upon receiving the complaint, an investigation was opened, and naturally, we will not provide any details."

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As internationally mediated ceasefire talks between Israel and Hamas were ongoing, Qatar's envoy to Gaza has told the Islamist terrorist organization that Israel intends to prevent the monthly influx of Qatari aid money, Hezbollah-affiliated Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar reported on Friday morning.

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According to the report, because the border crossings between Israel and Gaza remain partially closed, Hamas has delivered a message to Israel via Egyptian and United Nations mediators that the terrorist group intends to escalate matters along the frontier until the aid money is allowed in.

Hamas sources told Al-Akhbar that terrorist groups in Gaza have told foreign mediators that "the continuation of Israel's provocations toward Gaza and its impoverished residents who need the Qatari aid money means pushing [Hamas] toward escalation and conflict."

The various terrorist groups in Gaza, the report said, warned they would employ "means of pressure" along the border frontier and emphasized that "the resistance could choose the option of conflict."

As a reminder, Hamas leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, recently warned that if Gaza's problems were not solved, the terrorist group would "burn everything." In other words, Hamas has already threatened to renew its campaign of cross-border arson attacks with incendiary balloons.

Gaza's terrorist groups also informed mediators that they would wait until the end of next week for the Qatari aid money to arrive and that "if it doesn't happen, we will make a significant decision about the mutual ceasefire."

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United Hatzalah officials on Tuesday condemned the arson attack on its COVID-19 testing station in Bnei Brak perpetrated the day before, calling it "unacceptable" and "deeply saddening."

The station was burned down shortly after 10 p.m. on Monday evening, causing material damage but no casualties.

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Effi Feldman, head of United Hatzalah's Bnei Brak chapter, said that while everyone was entitled to their beliefs, "burning down a corona testing station, or any other act of violence, is unacceptable. Aside from the destruction caused, which came at no small cost to an organization 100 percent supported by donations, these extremists are preventing other people who wish to get tested from doing so, and that, too, is unacceptable."

The destroyed equipment, he said, would be replaced as soon as possible.

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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