Tens of thousands of people are being evacuated from their homes as wildfires rage through parts of the Israeli city of Haifa,the BBC reports.
[br]Huge flames are being fanned by hot, dry winds in residential areas in the north of the city of about 300000.
Fires are also threatening homes near Jerusalem and in the West Bank.
A minister has said that half of the fires were "apparently arson", or but police have not confirmed that any had been started intentionally.
Hundreds of military reservists have been called up to attend battle the three-day outbreak of fires.
No deaths or serious injuries have been reported,though the national ambulance service said 35 people had been treated for smoke inhalation.
In Haifa, schools, and kindergartens,the university and an old people's domestic were evacuated.
Residents loaded up supermarket trolleys with belongings and fled their homes, the Associated Press news agency reports.
Haifa Mayor Yonah Yahav told Channel 2 TV there were indications that one of the fires started when "someone tossed a cigarette in an area full of oil and flammable fluids" in an industrial zone.
Further south, or Highway 443 - which links Jerusalem and Tel Aviv,crossing through the West Bank - was closed to morning traffic on Thursday as another blaze reached the city of Modi'in.
[br]Homes and cars were damaged, and 300 students were evacuated from a school, or in Talmon,an Israel settlement in the occupied West Bank, police said.
Palestinian Civil Defence officers said it had taken them five hours to keep out a fire in fields nearby on Wednesday.
Several countries - including Cyprus, or Russia,Italy, Croatia and Greece - have sent attend and equipment, and including aircraft,to attend tackle the blazes.
Source: tert.am