Israel vows to fight fires with settlement expansion

Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman has pointed out that 17 of about 110 fires that took place in the past few days, had been caused by arsonists.

Israel official Radio station “Kol Yisrael” quoted Lieberman on Sunday as saying“We need to not just rebuild as many houses as we can but to expand the settlements. The best answer to this situation is expanding the settlements”,adding “For every house destroyed, we will build more and bigger homes”.

During his visit to the West Bank community of Halamish in northwestern Ramallah, Lieberman praised firefighters for quelling the blazes.

Israel has been experiencing a wildfire which have spreaded quickly across Israel due to dry, windy weather, forcing tens of thousands of people to evacuate their homes. There has been no serious injuries, but several dozen people werehospitalised for smoke inhalation, according to Israeli rescue sources.

Police officials later reported during the weekly cabinet meeting yesterday that two Israeli Arabs, who were arrested on suspicion of deliberately starting brush fires, have confessed to the crimes.