Ramallah: Three brothers were burnt to death and seven other family members sustained serious burns early Wednesday as a fire raged through their apartment in Hebron. The deaths have raised the number of Palestinian fire victims in the last week to eight.
Sources in Hebron Municipality named the three brothers as Khaled Esmael Al Qawasmi, 15, Mohammad, four, and Majd, three.
The seven injured family members who sustained burns were identified as the boys’ parents and five other children including Suhad (17), Reda, (13), Ramez (10), Khalil (nine), and Ghassan (six).
The apartment was on the fifth floor of the building in Wadi Al Herbah in the city of Hebron, south of the West Bank.
Sources attributed the blaze to the heaters commonly used by the Palestinian public at this time of the year.
The Palestinian Health Ministry has urged the public to never leave heaters working while families go to sleep as a serious precautionary measure. Dr Omar Al Nasr, who heads the Public Relations Department at the ministry, said that Palestinian cities have recently witnessed several tragic deaths due to the failure to adhere to safety measures and due to leaving heaters on when all the family members go to sleep. He warned that fires usually break out in houses where electric and non electric heaters are run all night.
Hebron residents accused the Palestinian civil defence forces of a fatal delay (40 minutes) in their arrival at the scene to fight the fire which gutted the entire apartment. Residents posted signs around the city of Hebron accusing the official authorities of the delay, which caused the deaths. Speaking to Gulf News, Adel Al Qawasmi, a relative of the family held the Palestinian official authorities fully responsible for the deaths and injuries.
For its part, Hebron Municipality has categorically rejected the accusation of delay, stressing the municipal firefighting vehicles arrived at the scene only five minutes after the fire broke out. Abdul Aziz Nofal, a spokesman of Hebron Municipality, said the municipality fights fires even before the arrival of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) and the creation of the Palestinian Civil Defense, but claimed that the three brothers had died before the arrival of the fire fighting vehicles.
Nofal said in a statement that the firefighters did not have the hydraulic stairs, which enable them to reach the windows of high apartments. He added that even if the municipal fire fighters had had those stairs in their equipment, it would have been impossible for them to get to that particular apartment as the fire had already reached the windows.
