Israel has been facing weeks of ongoing fires in recent weeks. Fifty families have been left homeless, countless animals have died, and thousands of acres of land have been destroyed, including pristine forests in central Israel.

The media framed the fires as the result of the high heat temperature - until the investigations began.

"Hundreds of the fires in the last weeks in Jerusalem and Beit Shemesh area were a result of arson," Kan News reported.

Here are the facts from the wave of fires that began in Israel on November 2016:

Firefighters have fought 1,773 fires.

In Haifa for example, 527 apartments were destroyed leaving 1,600 people homeless. 75,000 residents were evacuated and more than 20,000 dunams of forests burnt.

After a thorough investigation, it was determined that out of 80 fires that were checked, 71 were the result of arson.

Firefighter Ran Shlaf, considered the premier authority in fire investigations in the country said: “Yes. We've faced arson terror. There is no dilemma or doubt about it. All the villages that were burned were Jewish, and all those arrested or prosecuted were Arabs. And from a thorough investigation we conducted, no one else in the Middle East - including the Palestinians - experienced such an extreme wave of fires like we experienced".