BET SHEMESH, Israel: Israeli police evacuated several towns near Jerusalem on Wednesday as rapidly spreading bushfires tore through the area, prompting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to consider appealing to Greece for emergency assistance.
Towns located about 20 kilometers (12 miles) west of Jerusalem were evacuated, police and Israeli media said, while firefighting teams scrambled to contain the advancing blaze.
Speaking from the national fire service headquarters, Netanyahu directed his staff to initiate contact with Greece, and potentially other nations, to request support should international reinforcements become necessary.
“We do not know how this fire will develop,” Netanyahu said, calling for increased measures to douse the flames.
“It simply cannot reach” Jerusalem, he added.
“Of course, defend the communities in range” of the city, he went on, saying he “would prepare reserves from other countries such as Greece.”
Greece battled a spate of deadly wildfires last year, including a massive blaze that forced thousands to flee their homes and reached the suburbs of Athens before it was brought under control.
The fire near Jerusalem ignited Wednesday morning in wooded areas amid an intense heatwave and quickly escalated.
Footage captured by AFP showed emergency aircraft dousing the area with water and fire retardants in an effort to halt the spread.
Wildfires are a recurrent threat in Israel during periods of extreme heat.

BEIRUT: Human Rights Watch accused Israel on Wednesday of “indiscriminate” attacks on civilians during its recent war with Hezbollah, saying two deadly strikes in east Lebanon should be investigated as war crimes.
A November 27 ceasefire sought to end more than a year of hostilities between the two sides that began with Iran-backed Hezbollah’s cross-border fire at Israel in support of its Palestinian ally Hamas.
More than 4,000 people were killed in Lebanon, most of them during two months of all-out war that erupted in September, according to Lebanese authorities.
Among the dead were hundreds of Hezbollah fighters and a slew of senior commanders.
HRW said “two unlawful Israeli strikes” on the town of Yunin in the eastern Bekaa Valley that killed more than 30 people “were apparent indiscriminate attacks on civilians.”
“At least one of the attacks used an air-dropped bomb equipped with a United States-produced Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) guidance kit,” it said.
“The attacks should be investigated as war crimes.”
On September 25, a strike “killed a family of 23 people, all Syrians, including 13 children,” HRW said, while another on November 1 on a two-story house “killed 10 people, including two children, one of them a year old.”
HRW said it “did not find any evidence of military activity or targets at either site” and that the Israeli army did not issue evacuation warnings ahead of the strikes.
The rights watchdog said it had contacted the Israeli military about its findings but had “not received a response.”
AFP has also contacted the military for comment on the report.
HRW’s Ramzi Kaiss said in the statement that “more and more evidence is emerging that Israeli forces repeatedly failed to protect civilians or adequately distinguish civilians from military targets during its strikes across Lebanon.”
Washington’s supply of weapons to Israel “has made the US complicit in their unlawful use,” HRW added.
It urged the Lebanese government to give “the International Criminal Court jurisdiction to investigate and prosecute crimes” and provide “a path for justice for grieving families.”
Swathes of Lebanon’s south and east and parts of Beirut’s southern suburbs were heavily damaged by Israeli bombardment during the hostilities.
Last month, rights group Amnesty International said Israel’s attacks on ambulances, paramedics and health facilities in Lebanon during the conflict should also be investigated as war crimes.