Police arrested two Palestinians Sunday night on suspicion of causing a destructive fire in the northern West Bank settlement of Havat Gilad over the weekend, though the incident is reportedly being treated as an accident rather than arson.
The pair were taken to interrogation over the blazes that destroyed 13 houses and damaged dozens more Saturday afternoon.
Investigators said on Sunday that an initial probe indicated the fire was sparked by a still-lit cigarette butt flicked to the side of the road, as law enforcement began working to track down the vehicle it was thrown from.
Police did not immediately respond on Monday when asked whether the two detainees are suspected of causing the fire on purpose.
According to an Army Radio report on Sunday, however, security agencies assessed that the blaze was sparked unintentionally.
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After ruling out arson with a nationalist motive, the Shin Bet withdrew from the investigation and left police to handle it, the outlet said.
Police said Monday that officers were still weighing whether to ask for the two detainees to remain in custody, and would make a decision based on the interrogation’s findings.
Damage caused by a July 18 fire in the Israeli settlement of Havat Gilad in the West Bank, seen on July 19, 2026. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)
No casualties in blaze
According to reports, by Sunday morning, the fire in Havat Gilad had damaged 29 separate structures in the settlement, completely destroying 13 houses. More than 100 families were forced to evacuate their homes.
“By a great miracle, we had no casualties,” said Moshe Hachmon, the chairman of the settlement’s local council.
Damage caused by a fire that broke out in the settlement of Havat Gilad in the West Bank, July 19, 2026 (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)
He noted that the community was now facing what he called a “humanitarian crisis,” with many families left homeless and a significant portion of the settlement’s infrastructure damaged.
Despite the assessment that the fire was caused by accident, authorities warned of potential violent reprisals from Israeli settlers. Sunday saw an arson attack on a West Bank mosque in an apparent act of revenge for the fire in the settlement.
A Palestinian man checks a damaged mosque, whose entrance was torched and walls were daubed with Hebrew graffiti in an attack allegedly carried out by Israeli settlers in the Palestinian village of Tuwani, near Hebron in the West Bank, on July 19, 2026. (HAZEM BADER/AFP)
Israel experiences long, hot and dry summers, with conditions ripe for wildfires. Large blazes broke out in 1989, 1995, 2010, 2015, 2019, 2021, 2023, and 2025. The vast majority of forest fires in Israel are caused by human activity and are usually the result of negligence.
Last year, a fire in the Jerusalem hills raged for close to 30 hours before it was extinguished, destroying around 20,000 dunams (5,000 acres) of land.
At the time, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attributed that fire to Palestinian arson, and claimed that police had arrested 18 people on suspicion of nationally motivated arson. But police later said they had only made three arrests in connection with the fires.
None of the arrests resulted in an arson prosecution, and an unreleased probe by fire services reportedly ruled out arson as the reason for the blaze.
Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
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