Jerusalem, May 1 (EFE) .- The Prime minister of Israel, Benjamín Netanyahu, announced Thursday that the authorities of his country have arrested 18 people for their alleged involvement in the fires that hit the mountains near Jerusalem, although the causes of the fire are unknown for the moment.
Local Israeli media report that Netanyahu spoke in an event held in Jerusalem on the occasion of National Independence Day and said that 18 people have been arrested, one of them in the act, in relation to the fires that affect the city since Wednesday morning.
The prime minister added that these fires “are not a simple matter”, although he was convinced that emergency teams will control the flames.
“We are doing everything we can to stop the fire and rehabilitate what has been destroyed,” he said.
The detainee in the act to which Netanyahu referred was arrested by the police while setting fire to an open field in southern Jerusalem, in a place that is tens of kilometers from where the fires occurred, which have burned so far 2,000 hectares and caused the evacuation of thousands of people.
Police also arrested a man from Jerusalem is busy to publish on the Internet content calling to cause fires, this security body reported in a statement.
At the moment, the fire department maintains the fires “partially under control”, although they expect the winds of the west to rerecuer this afternoon, so the possibility that they are completely controlled are delayed at night.
