DEBKAfile Special Report December 3, 2010, 11:09 AM (GMT+02:00)
The body of the missing fireman found Friday, Dec. 3, raised the number of dead from the Carmel fire to 42. After battling dry, high winds through the night, firefighters closed the Haifa-Tel Aviv highway to traffic early Friday, Dec. 3, as the huge fire which enveloped the northern reaches of Mt. Carmel Thursday continued to blaze out of control and spread amid winds changing direction ever hour.
Northern sections of Highway 4 remain closed to traffic; Highway 2 was briefly closed and then reopened.They are the main arteries to northern Israel and have never been closed even during the 2006 war with Hizballah. Burning ash and heavy smoke have crossed Highway 4 from east to west, shutting it in both directions. Haifa's Danya neighborhood is threatened anew. More communities stand by for evacuation at Hof Hacarmel near the sea after the first 17,000 escaped their homes in the last 24 hours and were housed in provisional shelters. Numerous invitations to host them pour in from across the country.
The first crop-sprayer planes used by the Israeli fire brigade went up with first light, quickly joined by the first of some 20 planes from a dozen countries across the world carrying firefighters and fresh stocks of extinguisher materials in response to Israel's appeal for aid for the worst fire disaster in its experience.
The first planes landed Friday morning with specialist manpower from Greece, Cyprus and Bulgaria. Turkey has offered two planes. New York has pledged a planeload of materials for extinguishing fires. President Barack Obama promised aid and sent condolences for the deaths of Prison Services trainees – whose number has risen to 41 – who lost their lives on their way to rescue Damon Prison inmates in the path of the fire. Haifa police commander Ahuva Tomer remains in critical condition. The animals were evacuated from the open zoo at the Carmel nature reserve but many species of fauna have been destroyed along with rare vegetation.
The Israeli cabinet held a brief emergency session Friday. The prime minister told the ministers to focus on what needs to be done in terms of getting the fire under control – a process estimated to last a week or more given inadequate fire-fighting personnel, equipment and extinguisher stocks, and caring for the refugees. For now, all available manpower of 360 firefighters including army reservists and 106 fire engines are working flat out to battle the flames. Reinforcements are needed.
DEBKAfile reported Thursday night:
As fires raged out of control on Mt. Carmel, fire engines raced to the first Haifa streets to be evacuated in Danya Suburb, Thursday night, Dec. 2, raising to 15,000 the number of people forced out of their homes to safety – among them Tirat Hacarmel, its military facility and Haifa University.
Most of the 40 dead victims have been identified as cadets of the Prison Service warders' course, summoned to help evacuate 500 Damon Prison inmates before it succumbed to the flames. Their bus was trapped as the fire changed direction and caught them on an open road.
Twenty firefighting planes are due to arrive in response to an appeal for aid from Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. They come from the United States, Britain, Bulgaria, Azerbaijan, Turkey, Croatia, Greece, Cyprus, Spain, France, Russia, Jordan and Egypt. They are carrying 60 tons of fire-fighting materials to replenish Israeli fire service's depleted stock. Extinguishing the fire could take between a week and ten days. The focal centers of the raging fire are spaced roughly one to one-and-a-half kilometers apart, confirming the suspicion of arson.
After the first flames shot up at around 11.00 a,m., firefighters began evacuating Ein Hod, Nir Etzion, Ain Hood, Daliat Hacarmel, Isfiya, Military Prison 6 and Kibbutz Bet Oren. The Kibbutz later burnt to the ground. IDF emergency units providing water tankers and the Air Force ferrying fire engines quickly joined the teams fighting the blaze, as reinforcements and equipment poured in from stations across the country. As night fell, the troops joined the evacuation teams spread out as far north as Haifa's outskirts. The helicopters were grounded by the dark.
The flames have consumed thousands of dunams of woodland and brush across the scenic mountain, a favorite beauty spot for trippers and tourists. The conflagration spread fast, carried by strong eastern winds and fueled by the unseasonal drought which has left the entire region dry and parched.
Netanyahu visited the emergency center set up by the fire brigade, police, city leaders, homeland security and the IDF to fight the worst fire Israel has ever experienced and organize mass evacuations to safety. On hand too were Chief of staff Gaby Ashjkenazi, Internal Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonivitch and Police Commissioner Dudi Cohen.
First Carmel fire victims identified:
Topaz Even-Hen Klein, 28, married, Rehovot.
Maor Ganon, 27, married with child, Gan Yavne.
Yakir Swisa, 26, Dimona resident.
Kfir Ohana, 30, married with child, Ofakim.
Siom Tzagi, 31, married with 3 children, Netivot.
Hagai Jorno, 28, married with child, Kiryat Gat.
Oshrat Pinto, 26, Safed
Biber Shadi, 35, married with child, Kfar Jat.
Tapash Adel, 33, from Bet Jan.
Eran Wiesel, 31, from Kiryat Bialik.
Minister called for a day of mourning when the disaster was over.
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report December 2, 2010, 9:43 AM (GMT+02:00)
In quiet contacts, French President Nicolas Sarkozy warns that North Korea is using its crisis with the South to cover up its planned transfer to Iran of nuclear weapons systems parts and extra-fast centrifuges for uranium enrichment that could help Tehran go into bomb production in the first half of 2011, DEBKAfile's intelligence sources report. The French president has asked pro-Western Persian Gulf leaders to try and persuade President Barack Obama to take strong military action against North Korea – not just because of its aggression against the south, but to hold back Pyongyang's nuclear aid to Tehran.
Our sources report urgent secret calls from the Elysée to the New York hospital where Saudi King Abdullah is recovering from surgery, to his foreign minister Prince Saud Al Faisal and intelligence chief Prince Moqrin Bin Abdul Aziz as well as to the Emir of Kuwait, Shaikh Sabah Al Ahmad Al Sabah. He asked them to use their influence and lean hard on Washington for urgent action. In Sarkozy's opinion, Iran only agreed to meet the Six-Power representatives on December 6 for talks as a gambit to play for time until the North Korean nuclear supplements are in hand. He told the Gulf rulers that he had been informed by highly credible sources that the items from North Korea would help Iran solve the technical problems plaguing the program and holding up its progress.
Our sources also report a closed briefing session the French president held in Paris a few days ago for high officials in his government in which he enlarged on his warning. He found fault with President Obama's tactic of massing air and naval strength around Iran's shores in recent months to keep the Islamic Republic under military pressure ahead of nuclear talks. Those units, he said, would have been better employed surrounding North Korea in order to block its export of nuclear components to Iran. The sea is Pyongyang's only consignment route to Tehran, Sarkozy explained. If we all work together (US, France, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf emirates), he said, we can still abort it.
DEBKAfile's military sources add that the US-French naval and air deployment opposite Iran numbers two American and one French aircraft carrier, the USS Truman, USS Lincoln and the Charles de Gaulle and their strike forces. Several British and German warships have joined this armada. Sources familiar with the Sarkozy briefing quote him as maintaining that the USS Lincoln should have been sent to the Yellow Sea before the crisis erupted over North Korea's shelling of a South Korean island in the third week of November. He would then have ordered the Charles de Gaulle to join the US carrier at the Korean scene.
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