Late on Friday afternoon (July 17, 2026) residents of Givat Ma’ale Tadhir, a Jewish community near Gush Etzion, spotted a suspicious figure emerging from the nearby ‘Palestinian’ village of Sa’ir and moving through the dry brush. The area’s security coordinator launched a security surveillance drone to the location and captured real-time footage of a woman holding a burning rag and igniting one fire after another.
In the footage, the woman is seen throwing additional dry thorns into the flames to intensify the fire and direct it toward the outpost, using the wind to spread it. When she realized the drone had spotted her, she fled back to the village. Residents rushed to the scene, called security forces, and managed to extinguish the fire before it spread and caused disaster. As of now, no arrests of the woman or other suspects have been reported.
1+“The Security Establishment Must Wake Up”
Officials at Givot HaHazit (Frontline Hills), an organization representing several communities in Israel’s heartland of Judea and Samaria, noted that the drone used was supplied to the outpost just two weeks ago as part of a thermal drone donation program. “Already last weekend, residents used it to thwart an arson attack in real time,” the organization said.
1+The organization emphasized the critical importance of the documentation: “Without the drone footage, there would still be those in the security establishment claiming this wasn’t deliberate arson, but once again it’s been proven that this is terrorism in every sense of the word.” They added that last Shabbat an entire settlement went up in flames and that only by miracle did that incident not claim lives. The organization called on the security establishment to treat the arson threat with full severity.