As anti-Israel activists come up with fantastical ways to blame Israel for the deadly wildfire outbreak in California, the Jewish state is taking real-live measures to support the Golden State in its battle to contain the catastrophic flames. 

A leading Israeli humanitarian NGO, IsraAID, announced on Sunday that they were assembling a California-bound emergency response team to provide assistance for people whose homes were damaged or destroyed. Since the fires broke out in Southern California last week, more than 12,000 homes and structures have burned to the ground. 

“We have long-standing ties to communities in Los Angeles and across California and have deeply felt the impact of this emergency,” chief executive of IsraAID, Yotam Polizer, said in a statement. “We are proud to bring our expertise and support all the way from Israel, even as we continue our work in Israel and abroad. At a time of ongoing crisis at home and around the world, we are grateful to be able to aid communities in their time of need. This is what we do: support communities experiencing crisis, no matter where they are.”

IsraAID’s final plans will be confirmed once the fires are contained and the extent of the damage is clear, the group notes. The Israel-based organization has a long history of offering its services to American communities reeling from natural disasters, most recently sending a team to Florida in the wake of Hurricane Ian in 2022. IsraAid has also helped locals affected by hurricanes in Florida, Texas, North Carolina, and Puerto Rico. 

Meanwhile, another Israeli humanitarian aid organization, SmartAid, already has a team on the ground working to provide “immediate support to evacuees” and to help extinguish the rapidly-growing flames. According to an announcement on their website, SmartAid has been working to provide affected communities with access to electricity and internet and have successfully distributed 150 portable battery units across Los Angeles County in just the past week. The team is also raising additional funds to send a fleet of solar-powered telecommunication vehicles, known as “Smart Trailers,” to the area. 

Israeli organizations’ efforts to help the Golden State grapple with its wildfire crisis come as anti-Israel activists have launched a less-than-scientific campaign to blame Israel for the blaze. Most recently, the far-fetched accusations have been picked up by the United Nation’s special rapporteur, Francesa Albanese, who reshared a post on X that called the “fires burning in Palestine and Los Angeles” a symptom “of the same disease: a system that values conquest over conservation, profit over people, and expansion over existence.” Ms. Albanese added: “on our small planet, all injustices are connected.” 

A popular pro-Israel page on X, Jews Fight Back, took Ms. Albanese’s post as further proof that the United Nations is “a cesspool of Jew-hate.” The UN special rapporteur’s history of demonizing Israel and justifying Hamas’s October 7 massacre has drawn the ire of several NGO watchdogs and American-Jewish organizations who have repeatedly called out her comments as antisemitic. The Anti-Defamation League even shared an entire blog post dedicated to highlighting Ms. Albanese’s antisemitic offenses. 

Ms. Albanese’s comment follows a larger blame-game effort launched by a series of anti-Israel groups. CodePink, a left-wing antiwar grassroots organization, dispatched its leaders to the Capitol to convince members of Congress that the California wildfires are “connected to the genocide in Gaza” and that lawmakers must cease to purchase weapons from Israel lest they “further climate collapse and further the devastation and genocide of the people in Gaza.” 

A leader of hardline anti-Israel group, Within Our Lifetime, Fatima Mohammed, published on X a pseudoscientific theory linking the war in Gaza to the fires across the world in California. “Dropping hundreds of thousands of tons of bombs on Gaza, turning it into a blazing inferno, has consequences that extend beyond our moral condemnation — there are climate consequences that will find us all,” she wrote on Tuesday, adding that her heart “aches” for Gaza and the people of Los Angeles. 

Critics were quick to point out, however, that Ms. Mohammed failed to acknowledge the “climate consequences” of any ongoing war, nor did she mention the estimated 20,000 missiles, rockets, and drones launched by Hamas and Hezbollah since October 7, 2023. She also conveniently left out the “blazing inferno” that destroyed 21,500 acres in northern Israel as a result of Hezbollah’s strikes along the Lebanon border. Congressman Ritchie Torres j’accused those levying such accusations against the Jewish state as peddlers of “slanderous scapegoating.” 

Meanwhile, California may soon have even more reason to be thanking Israel. An Israeli start up, FireDome, is developing a wildfire defense system that harnesses artificial intelligence technology to detect and suppress fires. The system is modeled after Israel’s missile interceptor, the Iron Dome, and launches an eco-friendly fire-retardant that creates a protective barrier against approaching wildfires. The Tel-Aviv based start-up will be testing the product in local sites this spring, and hopes to roll out a pilot program in America by 2026.