Police: Arson Suspected at Valley of the Cross Fire in Jerusalem

Israeli Police said Monday that they suspected arson was the cause of a fire in Jerusalem’s Valley of the Cross, which threatened the Israel Museum and other important sites nearby.

The valley, which features an ancient Greek Orthodox monastery, is traditionally held to be the site from which the wood for the crucifixion of Jesus Christ was obtained. It is a popular area for hikes and is situated right below the Israel Museum and Israel’s parliament, or Knesset.

Firefighters scrambled Sunday to extinguish the blaze, which consumed dry brush quickly and neared the museum.

Ynetnews reported Monday:

The investigation into the fire that spread Sunday from the Valley of the Cross in Jerusalem revealed that the blaze ignited at three different sites, according to a fire official.

The fire spread through vegetation in the Valley of the Cross near the Israel Museum. Workers were evacuated from the museum as a precautionary measure. Fire and rescue teams, along with six firefighting planes, managed to prevent the fire, which reached the museum’s fences, from going inside.

None of the artwork at the museum was damaged, though a youth center in the valley suffered damage to its roof.

Israel has suffered arson attacks in the past that were linked to terrorist activity.

Separately, there were brush fires Sunday in northern Israel and the Golan Heights that resulted from barrages of rockets by Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed terror group in southern Lebanon. Israel targeted terror sites in response.

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 recent e-book, “The Zionist Conspiracy (and how to join it),” now available on Audible. He is also the author of the e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.