Wildfire closes highway linking Tel Aviv to Jerusalem on Memorial Day

A wildfire shut the main highway linking Tel Aviv to Jerusalem on Wednesday, sending at least a dozen people to the hospital and turning skies over Jerusalem gray.

Video footage showed vehicles stranded nearby as flames spread throughout the area, while another video showed the fire approaching a Catholic monastery.

The fire was being whipped up by strong winds and hot, dry weather. The cause was being investigated. Help was on the way from across the region, including aircraft from Italy, Croatia and North Macedonia, Israeli officials said.

Helicopters were dropping water to battle the flames from above, while other firefighting teams were responding on ATVs.

“We hope to reach 150 firefighting teams,” Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said.

The fire occurred as Israel observes Memorial Day for fallen soldiers and victims of attacks, ahead of Independence Day on Thursday. Many of the planned events were being canceled, including the official national ceremony in Jerusalem. The event had been set for Mount Herzl, near the fire zone. Instead, a recording of the dress rehearsal was being broadcast.

Those taken for hospital treatment mostly suffered from smoke inhalation, while another 10 people were treated in the field, Magen David Adom Ambulance services said. Residents living close to the fire zone were evacuated, police said.

Officials at the monastery, the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, said it was too early to assess the damage, if any. The religious communities had been safely evacuated, they said.

“We pray for the safety of everyone,” their statement said.

As flames advanced towards the Tel Aviv-to-Jerusalem highway, many people abandoned their cars and fled on foot or hitched rides with other vehicles heading in the opposite direction.

In 2010, a massive forest fire burned for four days on northern Israel’s Mount Carmel, claiming 44 lives and destroying around 12,000 acres, much of it woodland.

British airstrikes target Houthis

The British military launched airstrikes with the United States targeting Yemen’s Houthi terrorists, officials said early Wednesday, their first attack in Washington’s new intense campaign targeting the Iran-backed group.

The U.K. Defense Ministry described the site attacked as “a cluster of buildings, used by the Houthis to manufacture drones of the type used to attack ships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, located some 15 miles south of Sanaa.”

Royal Air Force Typhoon FGR4s took part in the raid, dropping Paveway IV guided bombs, the ministry added.

The campaign, called “Operation Rough Rider,” has been targeting the terrorists as the Trump administration negotiates with their main benefactor, Iran, over Tehran’s rapidly advancing nuclear program.

In other developments:

• Iran on Wednesday executed a man, Mohsen Langarneshin, it said worked for Israel’s foreign intelligence agency and played a role in the 2022 killing of a Revolutionary Guard colonel in Tehran, the official IRNA news agency reported.

• The United States told the International Court of Justice on Wednesday that Israel must provide aid to Gaza, but the country does not have to work with the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees. The U.S. said Israel had legitimate concerns about the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, also known as UNRWA, the largest provider of aid in the beleaguered Gaza Strip.

• Israel said Wednesday that it carried out an attack in Syria on a group targeting members of a minority sect.

• Iran said Wednesday the next round of negotiations over its nuclear program it will have with the U.S. will be in Rome on Saturday.

• The explosion that rocked an Iranian port, killing at least 70 people and injuring more than 1,000 others, had its epicenter at a facility owned by a charitable foundation overseen by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s office.

• London’s police force charged Abdullah Sabah Albadri, 33, Wednesday with a terror offense after he was detained trying to enter the grounds of the Israeli Embassy while in possession of what appears to have been a knife of some sort.