Many Arab media outlets have been taking advantage of Israel’s fire disaster to disparage the Jewish state and rejoice over its misfortune.

Meanwhile, officials in Jerusalem presented a grim assessment of the public relations damage suffered by Israel as result of its inability to effectively fight the fire.

“The PR damage in the world is huge; Israel is perceived as fully incompetent,” one source said.

“The great Carmel fire embarrassed Israel’s firefighting capabilities and proved its almost complete incompetence,” a report by Hezbollah’s al-Manar network said. The Lebanese station said the poor performance came despite Israeli claims regarding the IDF Home Front’s full readiness to cope with any emergency and face the implications of an all-out war.

The Qatar-based al-Jazeera network reported that “Israel failed to contain the fire.” The popular Arab station also noted that the Jewish state had to plead for international help in order to bring the blaze under control.

(Source: Ynet)