“I don’t even want to imagine what would happen if a combine harvester operator is trapped there during a fire,” says Ofer Liberman from kibbutz Nir Am.
Seven separate fires were lit by Palestinians who used helium balloons with flammable materials attached to them and sent the balloons flying into Israel on Monday from the Gaza Strip.
Firefighters were able to put the fires out, but a wheat field situated between Kfar Aza and Kibbutz Mefalsim caught fire suffering tens of thousands of NIS in damages.
A fire was also lit in the Be’eri forest. In both fires no one was hurt.
All three fires were put out by the firefighters and local residents were able to follow their daily routines as normal.
Farmers complained that this loss of wheat, mere days before the harvest, is costing them tens of thousands of shekels in damages.
Ofer Liberman from Kibbutz Nir Am explained to Maariv he feels “helpless when tackling the terror kites” because there are thousands of acres that are potentially vulnerable.
“I can’t keep a tractor in all that space just to put fires out”, said Liberman, “I don’t want to imagine what might happen if a combine harvester operator is trapped there during a fire,” he said.
“This is not agriculture terrorism but actual terrorism”, he said.
Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon visited the Gaza envelope on Sunday and said that “those who operate terror kites are to be dealt with as if they were launching rockets.”
Head of the Eshkol Regional Council Gadi Yarkoni lauded the minister for the visit and standing on the side of farmers with the rest of the Israeli government.
“We would want the threat to end, that is the first thing,” he said, “but it warms our hearts to know that when we face such a new threat the Ministry of Finance is on our side.”
IDF officers promised to end the terrorism kites and balloons by using drones, yet on May 4 two IDF drones were unable to function during the Friday Palestinian protests and landed in the Gaza strip.
As reported by The Jerusalem Post