by Nikki Guttman
"It ranges from 10 to 50 fires on a bad day," says ranger Hanan Levavi
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Rangers Hanan
Levavi, left, and Ezra Sasson inspect a burned
stretch of land in the
Gaza periphery
Photo: Yehuda Peretz
World
Ranger Day, an international day of recognition for the men and women
who guard national parks and forests all over the world, was no
celebration for the rangers working in the northern and western Negev,
where many thousands of acres of woodland, fields, and nature preserves
have been laid to waste by the burning balloons and kites that
Palestinians in Gaza float over the border fence, seeking to cause as
much damage to Israeli property as possible.
"The threat here is daily – it's like a
terrorist attack, you don't know where it will happen. You always have
this feeling of uncertainty about how many [burning] balloons will
arrive and where, and nature is paying the price," says Hanan Levavi,
who for the past five years has been working as the Israel Nature and
Parks Authority's chief ranger for the northern Negev. His job places
him on the front lines of the fight against arson terrorism in the form
of fire kites and balloons that Palestinians fly over the Gaza border
fence, hoping to cause as many fires as possible in Israel.
Recently, rangers in Gaza-adjacent
communities have been forced to join the effort to check the immense
damage caused by the terrorist arson from Gaza. Some sites have been
particularly hard hit: 80% of the foliage in Be'eri Forest has been
burned down; 56% of the Nir'am Reserve is scorched black, and a third of
the Karmia Reserve has gone up in flames. In total, over 11,000 dunams
(2,700 acres) of nature preserves have been lost to the fires.
Levavi says that in the past four months,
fires caused by the burning balloons and kites have broken out daily in
the Be'eri area.
"It ranges from 10 [separate] fires to 50
on the bad days. It's inconceivable. All the land is burned up. There's
nowhere for wild animals to hide," the ranger says.
"We are investing a lot of time and
resources in confronting the new threat. Not just me, as a ranger, but
our entire organization."
Levavi adds that "this is something on a
scale we weren't familiar with. We're working with teams from the Jewish
National Fund, Israel Fire and Rescue Services, and volunteers from
Kibbutz Be'eri, who are doing wonderful work. Some days are crazy –
we're on alert, and suddenly there are calls from a few sites and
everyone pitches in to put the fires out."
Ezra Sasson, director of the northern Negev
district for the Israel Nature and Parks Authority – a 36-year veteran
of the organization – calls the fires "unusual."
"We haven't had incidents like these. There
were localized natural disaster, but here we're talking about a fire
that wipes out an area the size of Netanya."
Sasson explains that "for years, we've been
making sure that people don't veer off certain paths [to protect the
wildlife], and now a fire like this comes and destroys all that work,
everything you believe in. For us, it's carnage. It affects us the most
because we see the beauty [of nature] – we see the changes in the
different seasons and we see the budding, the flowering, and the autumn.
Then in one day, it all turns black."
On Monday, the arson attacks from Gaza
continued unabated, causing at least 30 fires in Gaza-adjacent
communities. For the first time, a burning balloon was carried as far as
Beersheba, which lies well inland.
Nikki Guttman
Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/2018/07/31/parks-rangers-in-southern-israel-watch-lifes-work-turn-to-ash/
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