HAIFA, Israel _A wildfire roared through parts of Israel's third-largest city Thursday, forcing tens of thousands of people to leave their homes as the country's leaders raised the possibility that Arab assailants had intentionally set the blaze.
Spreading quickly because of dry, windy weather, the fire raced through Haifa's northern neighborhoods, sending panicked residents fleeing.
While there were no serious injuries, several dozen people were hospitalized for smoke inhalation. Israel called up hundreds of military reservists to join overstretched police and firefighters and was making use of an international fleet of firefighting aircraft sent by several countries.
The Haifa blaze was the most serious in a series of fires across the country in recent days. On a visit to the area, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that anyone implicated in setting the fires would be punished severely.
"It's a crime for all intents and purposes and in our opinion it is terror for all intents and purposes," he said.
Netanyahu did not elaborate on the identity or motives of the suspected arsonists, but Israeli officials typically use the term "terror" to refer to Arab or Palestinian militant activity.
Israel has been on edge during more than a year of Palestinian attacks, mostly stabbings, that have tapered off, but not stopped, in recent months. Netanyahu has blamed Palestinian incitement for those attacks.
Netanyahu's accusations could test already brittle relations between Israel's Jewish majority and its Arab minority, which has long suffered discrimination in Israel and says it has been slighted by rhetoric from Netanyahu and other Israeli officials in the past.
Israel's police chief, Roni Alsheich, said arrests had been made, without elaborating.
"It's safe to assume that whoever is setting the fires isn't doing it only out of pyromania," he said. "It's safe to assume that if it is arson it is politically motivated."
Israeli media said the Shin Bet internal security agency was helping look for arsonists, while Internal Security Minister Gilad Erdan said "we need to be prepared for a new type of terror."
The Palestinians meanwhile offered to send firefighting teams, the official Palestinian news agency WAFA reported. Yousef Nassar, director general of the Palestinian Civil Defense, said the offer of assistance was "a humanitarian message." The Palestinians helped Israel during a deadly wildfire in 2010. Israel's response to the offer was not known.
