Israel announced Wednesday that it is sending a team of firefighting experts to Los Angeles, following an inquiry on Tuesday by Breitbart News during a press briefing by the Office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The Los Angeles area has been devastated over the past week by the intense destruction of the Palisades Fire and the Eaton Fire, among other, smaller blazes. Tens of thousands of homes have been lost, and many families displaced.
The Times of Israel reported:
The Fire and Rescue Authority will send a team of five fire protection experts to the United States this evening, to help responders combat the blazes now sweeping southern California, says the agency’s spokeswoman.
…
“We have had wildfires already in Israel, perhaps not of the size over there [in California] but still, we have had quite big ones,” says spokeswoman Tal Volvovitch. “We are now seeing, outside Israel, the sheer damage that fire can cause and the power it has.”
…
Earlier this week, Fire and Rescue Authority spokespeople told The Times of Israel it intended to send a symbolic team of a few dozen firefighters to the US West Coast, but the proposal has since been shelved in favor of the current plan.
Breitbart News had asked on Tuesday: “Does Israel have firefighting experience that could be relevant to Los Angeles and other cities around the world? Has Israel offered to send relief teams to Los Angeles?
Israeli government spokesman David Mencer replied that “there will have been discussions on this issue as well,” but did not elaborate, other than to stress the importance of the U.S.-Israel relationship, and Israeli expertise in water.
Recently, Israel has had to contend with dozens of wildfires sparked by Hezbollah rockets in the northern part of the country. Prior to the war, it also had to battle brush fires in the south caused by incendiary balloons launched by Hamas from Gaza.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days, available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
