The article provided no concrete evidence, such as official statements or witness accounts, to substantiate the accusation. Tehran Times, widely regarded as aligned with Iran's government, often frames Israel as a primary adversary, casting doubt on the report's impartiality.

The alleged incident comes against the backdrop of ongoing Operation Rising Lion – Israel's campaign, launched on Thursday night, to remove the threat posed by the radical ayatollah regime in Tehran over its ongoing nuclear program, which has reached dangerous levels of uranium enrichment and sophistication, potentially having the capacity to build several bombs within several weeks once it decides on such a move.

Israel's campaign has so far managed to cripple Iranian air defenses and decapitate its senior military leadership, as well as deal severe blows to its nuclear program by hitting its main installations, including the largest enrichment center in Natanz. Several key nuclear scientists were also killed.

Before the war, Iran had accused Israel of orchestrating attacks on its infrastructure, including nuclear facilities, while Israel seldom acknowledges such actions. As of now, no independent sources, including international media, have confirmed the fire or its cause. Iranian authorities have not issued an official response, and Israel's government has remained silent on the matter.

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A fire at a central Jerusalem girls' seminary dormitory Monday morning resulted in 48 injuries and a large-scale emergency response, with three people in serious condition. The blaze, triggered by a malfunctioning electrical device, broke out in the building where renovation work was ongoing.

Despite construction, the two lower floors actively housed 45 female students. The first paramedic to arrive reported that all students were conscious when emergency services reached the scene, and evacuation procedures began immediately with assistance from passersby, several of whom were injured during the rescue effort.

The casualties were distributed across Jerusalem hospitals. Hadassah Medical Center received 35 patients, with 15 students sent to Mount Scopus and 20 to Ein Kerem, including two in serious condition from smoke inhalation. Shaare Zedek Medical Center treated 16 casualties – 12 students and four men – all with smoke inhalation symptoms.

Among the seriously injured were a 30-year-old man and two women from the dormitory, ages 18 and 20. Two additional men, ages 32 and 18, suffered moderate injuries, while 34 others sustained minor injuries.

In a separate incident the same morning, a fire broke out at an auto repair shop in the Beit Hanina neighborhood in east Jerusalem, involving burning tires and four vehicles. Twelve firefighting teams responded, rescuing one person who fled to the roof. The incident commander at the scene reported that emergency teams effectively managed three distinct fire zones involving the tire shop, construction store, and vehicles, noting that the professional response prevented potentially more severe damage.

Both incidents are under investigation by Fire and Rescue Service investigators and Israel Police.

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The 2024 Paris Olympics Olympic flame flies in the air. It looks great, but it does not include one traditional feature of flames—fire.

The environmentally-friendly floating, hot-air balloon-style cauldron structure tethered in the Tuileries Garden was designed by French designer Matthieu Lehanneur. Instead of fire, it features 40 LED spotlights and 200 misting nozzles that create a cloud of mist and beams of light resembling flickering fire without the use of fossil fuels.

The renewable energy-powered cauldron, aims to reduce emissions while adding an air of mystery and spectacle to the display, accessible for public viewing.

The cauldron's design is a departure from the traditional Olympic flame, typically fueled by fossil fuels.

Sources: NPR, Fast Company, Business Insider, New York Times, The Sun, Barron's, France24, Economic Times, RFI, Surface, Live Design, Gulf Times, Architect's Newspaper.

This article was written in collaboration with Generative AI news company Alchemiq.

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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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A devastating fire broke out on Sunday morning at the Marywilska 44 shopping complex in Warsaw's Bialoleka district, housing 1,400 shops and service outlets. The fire brigade reported that more than 80% of the vast complex was ablaze, prompting the deployment of 50 teams, including chemical and environmental rescue specialists, to carry out rescue operations.

Polish authorities reported a fire at the Marywilska 44 shopping center in Warsaw as of the morning of May 12. A warning has been issued for nearby residents to stay home and close their windows. pic.twitter.com/fC1h2Yehp5

— Farnak (@Farnakyboy) May 12, 2024

Magdalena, a resident of Warsaw, told Israel Hayom, "The smell of smoke from the fire could be felt miles away." Footage aired by the private broadcaster TVN24 showed thick black smoke billowing over the area, as the flames engulfed the shopping center. According to a police spokesperson quoted by the PAP news agency, no injuries were reported. Authorities also issued a text message warning to Warsaw residents, advising them to stay indoors with windows closed due to the fire.

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A raging wildfire that swept through a picturesque town on the Hawaiian island of Maui this week has killed at least 89 people, authorities said Saturday, making it the deadliest US wildfire of the past century.

The new death toll Saturday came as federal emergency workers with axes and cadaver dogs picked through the aftermath of the blaze, marking the ruins of homes with a bright orange X for an initial search and HR when they found human remains.

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Dogs worked the rubble, and their occasional bark – used to alert their handlers to a possible corpse – echoed over the hot and colorless landscape.

Video: Aerial footage from the fire in Hawaii 2023 / Credit: Reuters

The inferno that swept through the centuries-old town of Lahaina on Maui's west coast four days earlier torched hundreds of homes and turned a lush, tropical area into a moonscape of ash. The state's governor predicted more bodies will be found.

"It's going to rise," Gov. Josh Green remarked Saturday as he toured the devastation on historic Front Street. "It will certainly be the worst natural disaster that Hawaii ever faced. ... We can only wait and support those who are living. Our focus now is to reunite people when we can and get them housing and get them health care, and then turn to rebuilding."

Maui Police Chief John Pelletier said two of the 89 victims have been identified so far, adding that identifying the dead is extremely challenging because "we pick up the remains and they fall apart."

"When we find our family and our friends, the remains that we're finding is through a fire that melted metal. We have to do rapid DNA to identify them. Every one of these 89 are John and Jane Does," he said. "We know we've got to go quick, but we've got to do it right."

At least 2,200 buildings were damaged or destroyed in West Maui, Green said, of which 86% were residential. Across the island, he added, damage was estimated at close to $6 billion. He said it would take "an incredible amount of time" to recover."

At least two other fires have been burning in Maui, with no fatalities reported thus far: in south Maui's Kihei area and in the mountainous, inland communities known as Upcountry. A fourth broke out Friday evening in Kaanapali, a coastal community in West Maui north of Lahaina, but crews were able to extinguish it, authorities said.

Green said the Upcountry fire had affected 544 structures, of which 96% were residential. Emergency managers in Maui were searching for places to house people displaced from their homes. As many as 4,500 people are in need of shelter, county officials said on Facebook early Saturday, citing figures from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Pacific Disaster Center.

Those who escaped counted their blessings, thankful to be alive as they mourned those who didn't make it.
Retired fire captain Geoff Bogar and his friend of 35 years, Franklin Trejos, initially stayed behind to help others in Lahaina and save Bogar's house. But as the flames moved closer and closer Tuesday afternoon, they knew they had to get out. Each escaped to his own car. When Bogar's wouldn't start, he broke through a window to get out, then crawled on the ground until a police patrol found him and brought him to a hospital.

Trejos wasn't as lucky. When Bogar returned the next day, he found the bones of his 68-year-old friend in the back seat of his car, lying on top of the remains of the Bogars' beloved 3-year-old golden retriever Sam, whom he had tried to protect.

Trejos, a native of Costa Rica, had lived for years with Bogar and his wife, Shannon Weber-Bogar, helping her with her seizures when her husband couldn't. He filled their lives with love and laughter.
"God took a really good man," Weber-Bogar said.

Bill Wyland, who lives on the island of Oahu but owns an art gallery on Lahaina's historic Front Street, fled on his Harley Davidson, whipping the motorcycle onto empty sidewalks Tuesday to avoid traffic-jammed roads as embers burned the hair off the back of his neck.

Riding in winds he estimated to be at least 70 miles per hour (112 kilometers per hour), he passed a man on a bicycle who was pedaling for his life.

"It's something you'd see in a Twilight Zone, horror movie or something," Wyland said.

The newly released death toll surpassed the toll of the 2018 Camp Fire in northern California, which left 85 dead and destroyed the town of Paradise. A century earlier, the 1918 Cloquet Fire broke out in drought-stricken northern Minnesota and raced through a number of rural communities, destroying thousands of homes and killing hundreds.

The wildfires are the state's deadliest natural disaster in decades, surpassing a 1960 tsunami that killed 61 people. An even deadlier tsunami in 1946, which killed more than 150 on the Big Island, prompted development of a territory-wide emergency alert system with sirens that are tested monthly.

Hawaii emergency management records do not indicate the warning sirens sounded before fire hit the town. Officials sent alerts to mobile phones, televisions and radio stations, but widespread power and cellular outages may have limited their reach.

Fueled by a dry summer and strong winds from a passing hurricane, the wildfires on Maui raced through parched brush covering the island.

The most serious blaze swept into Lahaina on Tuesday and destroyed nearly every building in the town of 13,000, leaving a grid of gray rubble wedged between the blue ocean and lush green slopes.

Front Street, the heart of the historic downtown and Maui's economic hub, was nearly empty of life Saturday morning. An Associated Press journalist encountered one barefoot resident carrying a laptop and a passport, who asked where the nearest shelter was. Another, riding a bicycle, took stock of the damage at the harbor, where he said his boat caught fire and sank.

Maui water officials warned Lahaina and Kula residents not to drink running water, which may be contaminated even after boiling, and to only take short, lukewarm showers in well-ventilated rooms to avoid possible chemical vapor exposure.

The danger on Maui was well known. Maui County's hazard mitigation plan updated in 2020 identified Lahaina and other West Maui communities as having frequent wildfires and several buildings at risk. The report also noted West Maui had the island's second-highest rate of households without a vehicle and the highest rate of non-English speakers.

"This may limit the population's ability to receive, understand and take expedient action during hazard events," the plan stated.

Maui's firefighting efforts may have been hampered by limited staff and equipment. Bobby Lee, president of the Hawaii Firefighters Association, said there are a maximum of 65 county firefighters working at any given time, who are responsible for three islands: Maui, Molokai and Lanai. Green said officials will review policies and procedures to improve safety.

"People have asked why we are reviewing what's going on and it's because the world has changed. A storm now can be a hurricane-fire or a fire-hurricane," he said. "That's what we experienced, that's why we're looking into these policies, to find out how we can best protect our people."

Riley Curran said he fled his Front Street home after climbing up a neighboring building to get a better look. He doubts county officials could have done more, given the speed of the onrushing flames.

"It's not that people didn't try to do anything," Curran said. "The fire went from zero to 100."
Curran said he had seen horrendous wildfires growing up in California. But, he added, "I've never seen one eat an entire town in four hours."

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A third successive heat wave in Greece pushed temperatures back above 40 C (104 F) across parts of the country Tuesday following more nighttime evacuations from fires that have raged out of control for days.

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The latest evacuations orders were issued on the islands of Corfu and Evia, while a blaze on the island of Rhodes continued to move inland, torching mountainous forest areas, including part of a nature reserve.

Desperate residents, many with wet towels around their necks to stave off the scorching heat, used shovels to beat back flames approaching their homes, while firefighting planes and helicopters resumed water drops at first light.

Authorities said that more than 20,000 people has been involved in successive evacuations on the island, mostly tourists over the weekend, when fire swept through two coastal areas on the southeast of Rhodes.

The European Union has sent 500 firefighters, 100 vehicles and seven planes from 10 member states, while Turkey, Israel, Egypt and other countries have also sent help.

"For the 12th day, under extreme conditions of heat and strong winds, we are fighting nonstop on dozens of forest fire fronts ... The Greek Fire Service has battled more than 500 fires – more than 50 a day," said Vassilis Kikilias, the minister for climate crisis and civil protection.

In Athens, authorities resumed afternoon closing hours at the ancient Acropolis, as part of broader measures to cope with the high heat.

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If time travel was possible, medieval carpenters would surely be amazed to see how woodworking techniques they pioneered in building Notre Dame Cathedral more than 800 years ago are being used again today to rebuild the world-famous monument's fire-ravaged roof.

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Working with hand axes to fashion hundreds of tons of oak beams for the framework of Notre Dame's new roof has, for the carpenters, been like rewinding time. It's given them a new appreciation of their predecessors' handiwork that pushed the architectural envelope back in the 13th century. "It's a little mind-bending sometimes," says Peter Henrikson, one of the carpenters. He says there are times when he's whacking mallet on a chisel that he finds himself thinking about medieval counterparts who were cutting "basically the same joint 900 years ago."

The use of hand tools to rebuild the roof that flames turned into ashes in 2019 is a deliberate, considered choice, especially since power tools would undoubtedly have done the work more quickly. The aim is to pay tribute to the astounding craftsmanship of the cathedral's original builders and to ensure that the centuries-old art of hand-fashioning wood lives on. "We want to restore this cathedral as it was built in the Middle Ages," says Jean-Louis Georgelin, the retired French army general who is overseeing the reconstruction.

Facing a tight deadline to reopen the cathedral by December 2024, carpenters and architects are also using computer design and other modern technologies to speed up the reconstruction. Computers were used in the drawing of detailed plans for carpenters, to help ensure that their hand-chiseled beams fit together perfectly.

Unlike in medieval times, the wooden frame will be trucked into Paris and lifted by a mechanical crane into position. Some 1,200 trees have been felled for the work. The rebuilt frame "is the same wooden frame structure of the 13th century," he says. "We have exactly the same material: oak. We have the same tools, with the same axes that were used, exactly the same tools. We have the same know-how. And soon, it will return to its same place. It is a real resurrection."

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A fire set off by stored gasoline in a residential building killed 21 people Thursday evening in a refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip, the territory's Hamas rulers said, in one of the deadliest incidents in recent years outside the violence stemming from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The blaze erupted on the third floor of a three-story building in the crowded Jabaliya camp, according to the Palestinian militant group Hamas. No one inside the house survived.

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The Civil Defense in Gaza, which is run by Hamas, attributed the cause of the fire to gasoline that was being stored in the building. It was not immediately clear how the gasoline ignited. Officials said an investigation was underway.

Video: Deadly fire in Gaza / Social media

Flames were seen spewing out of the windows of the burning floor as hundreds of people gathered outside on the street, waiting for fire trucks and ambulances.

Gaza, ruled by Hamas and under a crippling Israeli-Egyptian blockade, faces a severe energy crisis. People often store cooking gas, diesel and gasoline in homes in preparation for winter. House fires have previously been caused by candles and gas leaks.

The State of Israel and defense establishment send our condolences following the tragic incident in Gaza. We have offered our assistance in evacuating injured civilians to hospitals via COGAT. The State of Israel is prepared to provide life-saving, medical aid to Gaza residents.

— בני גנץ - Benny Gantz (@gantzbe) November 17, 2022

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas offered condolences to the families of the dead and declared Friday a day of mourning.

Tor Wennesland, the United Nations' Middle East peace envoy, expressed "heartfelt condolences to the bereaved families, relatives and friends of those who died in the accident; the Government, and the Palestinian people."

Hussein Al-Sheikh, a senior Palestinian Authority official, called on Israel to open its border crossing with Gaza to allow for the evacuation of those injured who need advanced medical care to Palestinian hospitals in the West Bank and Jerusalem. It was later confirmed that all in the house had died.

But Israel's Defense Minister Benny Gantz sent his condolences to the Palestinians, writing on Twitter that "we have offered our assistance in evacuating injured civilians to hospitals via COGAT. The State of Israel is prepared to provide life-saving, medical aid to Gaza residents."

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A malfunctioning space heater sparked a fire that filled a high-rise Bronx apartment building with thick smoke Sunday morning, killing 19 people including nine children in New York City's deadliest blaze in three decades.

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Trapped residents broke windows for air and stuffed wet towels under doors as smoke rose from a lower-floor apartment where the fire started. Survivors told of fleeing in panic down darkened hallways and stairs, barely able to breathe.

Multiple limp children were seen being given oxygen after they were carried out. Evacuees had faces covered in soot.

Firefighters found victims on every floor, many in cardiac and respiratory arrest, said Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro. Some could not escape because of the volume of smoke, he said.

Some residents said they initially ignored wailing smoke alarms because false alarms were so common in the 120-unit building, built in the early 1970s as affordable housing.

More than five dozen people were hurt and 13 were hospitalized in critical condition. Nigro said most of the victims had severe smoke inhalation.

Firefighters continued making rescues even after their air supplies ran out, Mayor Eric Adams said.

"Their oxygen tanks were empty and they still pushed through the smoke," Adams said.

Investigators said the fire, triggered by the electric heater, started in a duplex apartment on the second and third floors of the 19-story building.

The flames didn't spread far – only charring the one unit and an adjacent hallway. But the door to the apartment and a door to a stairwell had been left open, letting smoke quickly spread throughout the building, Nigro said.

New York City fire codes generally require apartment doors to be spring-loaded and slam shut automatically, but it was not immediately clear whether this building was covered by those rules.

Building resident Sandra Clayton grabbed her dog Mocha and ran for her life when she saw the hallway fill with smoke and heard people screaming, "Get out! Get out!"

Clayton, 61, said she groped her way down a darkened stairway, clutching Mocha. The smoke was so black she couldn't see, but she could hear neighbors wailing and crying nearby.

"I just ran down the steps as much as I could but people was falling all over me, screaming," Clayton recounted from a hospital where she was treated for smoke inhalation.

In the commotion, her dog slipped from her grasp and was later found dead in the stairwell.

About 200 firefighters responded to the building on East 181st Street around 11 a.m.

Jose Henriquez, an immigrant from the Dominican Republic who lives on the 10th floor, said the building's fire alarms would frequently go off, but would turn out to be false.

"It seems like today, they went off but the people didn't pay attention," Henriquez said in Spanish.

He and his family stayed, wedging a wet towel beneath the door once they realized the smoke in the halls would overpower them if they tried to flee.

Luis Rosa said he also initially thought it was a false alarm. By the time he opened the door of his 13th-floor apartment, the smoke was so thick he couldn't see down the hallway. "So I said, OK, we can't run down the stairs because if we run down the stairs, we're going to end up suffocating."

"All we could do was wait," he said.

The children who died were 16 years old or younger, said Stefan Ringel, a senior adviser to the mayor. Adams said at a news conference that many residents were originally from the West African nation of Gambia. Many survivors were brought to temporary shelter in a nearby school.

The drab, brown apartment building looms over an intersection of smaller, aging brick buildings on Webster Avenue, one of the Bronx's main thoroughfares.

By Sunday afternoon, all that remained visible of the unit where the fire started was a gaping black hole where the windows had been smashed.

"There's no guarantee that there's a working fire alarm in every apartment, or in every common area," US Rep. Ritchie Torres, a Democrat who represents the area, told the AP. "Most of these buildings have no sprinkler system. And so the housing stock of the Bronx is much more susceptible to devastating fires than most of the housing stock in the city."

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Nigro and Torres both compared the fire's severity to a 1990 blaze at the Happy Land social club where 87 people were killed when a man set fire to the building after getting into an argument with his former girlfriend and being thrown out of the Bronx club.

Sunday's death toll was the highest for a fire in the city since the Happy Land fire, other than the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

It was also the deadliest fire at a US residential apartment building in years. In 2017, 13 people died in an apartment building, also in the Bronx, according to data from the National Fire Protection Association.

That fire started with a three-year-old boy playing with stove burners and also spread because the door to an apartment that lacked a closing mechanism had been left open. The fire led to several changes in New York City, including having the fire department create fire safety education plans for children and parents.

Sunday's fire happened just days after 12 people, including eight children, were killed in a house fire in Philadelphia. In 1989, a Tennessee apartment building fire claimed the lives of 16 people.

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