Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who also serves as a Minister in the Defense Ministry, has announced that Israel will remove waste from illegal fires ignited by Palestinian Authority Arabs in Judea and Samaria.
At the same time, he emphasized, Israel will work to offset the cost of the removal from Palestinian Authority funds.
Speaking at a conference held by the Rosh Ha'ayin municipality on combating air pollution, Smotrich criticized the lack of governmental responsibility in the waste sector and called for the establishment of a national corporation under local government control.
"The Green Line does not stop the pollution," he stressed. "We are all in the same boat."
In a December 2025 meeting of the Knesset Interior Affairs Committee on the illegal fires, Knesset members presented the implications of the phenomenon on the health of the residents and the environment.
MK Tzvi Succot (Religious Zionists) warned of the severity of the situation, saying: "During the Meron disaster, 45 people were killed; here, thousands of people are being killed. People here are dying from the fires, there are stillbirths, and people are lying in the hospital. It is shameful. As a member of the coalition, I'm embarrassed to say this, unfortunately, the IDF is not involved."
He added, "This is terrorism that injures and kills thousands of people. We may have to form a commission of inquiry. We have to send the Air Force and tell them to shoot anyone who starts a fire."
Committee Chairman MK Yitzhak Kroizer and Environmental Protection Minister Idit Silman second the aggressive classification of the issue, and said: "It is true that it's terrorism. Anyone who starts a fire must be shot. Terrorism must be treated as terrorism."
Other MKs referred to the wave of arson as a "security threat" and called for decisive action by the security forces, including the use of the Air Force and stopping the perpetrators in real-time.