Gidon Erdan is the Minister of Public Security and Strategic Affairs. He also is the Minister of Information. In an interview with Channel 2 after Shabbat, Gilad Erdan said the following:
“The Fire Department has all the fires under control. They, with the help of international firefighter teams are dealing successfully with all the fires. These are not regular wildfires , they are arson attacks. The Fire Department has asked all schools to refrain from taking nature hikes for this coming week.”
Erdan also said, “35 suspects have been taken for questioning so far, and 23 of them have been arrested. Of those arrested most were Muslims from Judea and Samaria, very few were Israeli Arabs , with Israeli citizenship. Some are guilty of online incitement to terror. This is the same type of incitement which riles up Arabs to carry out stabbing attacks. This is a new type of terror that encourages Arabs to take advantage of the strong winds in order to burn entire towns and cause harm to us.”
“The same tools that enable us to destroy the home of a terrorist that shot or stabbed someone should be used to deter these arsonists. There’s no difference, Terror is terror.”
In Halamish-Neve Tzuf arsonists threw Molotov cocktails at the outer row of houses, burned 18 homes and severely damaged 30 others on Friday night. Many private cars were also burned. Eleven people, including two soldiers and two firefighters, were lightly injured from smoke inhalation. Two people were transferred to hospitals.
On his way to visit Halamish-Neve Tzuf to see the damage, Erdan exclaimed:” It is horrific to think about those “animal-people” who tried to burn a whole town down with its inhabitants.”