A massive fire that broke out on Shabbat afternoon tore through the community of Chavat Gilad in Samaria, destroying 13 homes and businesses and causing tens of millions of shekels in damage, though the event ended without loss of life, according to Kikar HaShabbat.
Among those hit hardest were brothers Yehuda and Yehoyada Cohen, partners who run Tzameret, a large and successful timber warehouse in Samaria, along with the Ayalim Pool recreation complex. In an interview with Kikar HaShabbat, the brothers described the terror of the fire and the faith that carried them through it, while pushing back forcefully on early reports attributing the blaze to a discarded cigarette butt.
Yehuda recalled that the fire began around 1:30 in the afternoon while the family was sitting down to their Shabbat meal. His son ran in from outside, frightened, and told him there was a fire. He said it looked distant at first, but within minutes his son returned saying it was approaching quickly. Yehuda called the community's security coordinator, who went to check and called back shaken, telling him the fire had grown enormous.
Strong winds blowing through Samaria that afternoon turned the local fire into a catastrophe within minutes, the brothers said. The flames jumped rapidly toward the row of houses, triggering panic throughout the community as families fled with only what they could carry, loading into cars while children and infants screamed in fear, as dozens of fire trucks and aircraft worked to contain the blaze. Yehuda said residents fought the fire themselves, noting that because the community lives with arson attacks as a regular reality, nearly every home is equipped with fire extinguishers, mattocks and water trailers, and that a civilian firefighting effort managed to create a barrier between the flames and the houses at the last moment. He said the community's homes were largely saved, but that the recreation complex and the timber warehouse, covering roughly a dunam and a half of what he described as an intensive timber operation, burned completely.
Hours later, at the close of Shabbat, with smoke still rising and the scale of the damage becoming clear, the brothers were filmed performing havdalah and giving thanks to God, a video that went viral on social media and moved many online. The brothers said the moment was not planned. A friend had brought them beer to drink after the ordeal, and when they said they hadn't yet made havdalah, the friend replied with pained sarcasm that they at least had no shortage of fire for the blessing over the flame. The brothers said they performed havdalah facing the flames and chose to recite a psalm of thanksgiving first. Yehuda, who has volunteered for years with Israel's Magen David Adom ambulance service, said that when he saw the fire reaching the houses he was certain the community was facing a catastrophe with deaths and injuries, and that when it ended with zero casualties, it was heartfelt gratitude to God. He said that in a week when the Nine Days recall the destruction of the Temple, the community had felt something of what that destruction means, but that they would rise and grow out of it.
The damage to the Cohen brothers' business is estimated at roughly 10 million shekels, and because the business is located in what is officially classified as a young settlement, no insurance company had agreed to cover it. The brothers said they built a thriving business from nothing and watched it collapse within hours, and that because of the complexities of insuring a young settlement, they were left without any coverage and are starting again from zero. In response, they launched a crowdfunding campaign called "Rebuilding Tzameret, Chavat Gilad," asking the public to help fund the recovery.
The brothers also directly rejected early reports suggesting the fire was caused by a cigarette butt discarded by a Palestinian passerby, calling that explanation a disservice to the reality on the ground. They said the community lives daily with what they described as arson terror, with firefighting teams on constant alert throughout the summer months regardless of whether a given fire begins with a cigarette, a hookah ember or a firebomb, arguing that the intent behind such incidents is what matters. They pointed to a similar incident roughly two months earlier near Kochav HaShachar, in which they said an Arab man threw a burning ember from a vehicle and was arrested, and said the state must take full responsibility for the phenomenon.
Despite the devastating loss, the brothers closed the interview with a message of resilience, saying that with God's help and the help of the Jewish people they will rebuild a bigger home and business than before.
