BICOM

State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss sent the final draft of his detailed report on the December 2010 Carmel fire to government ministers and officials. Earlier drafts of the report hinted that Israel’s interior and finance ministers may be asked to resign over their failures in preventing the disaster.

The draft was sent to all its intended recipients yesterday, who will be given three weeks to respond to the report. The state comptroller said he had sent copies of the report to everyone who has been audited, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz, Interior Minister Eli Yishai, Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch and Defence Minister Ehud Barak. The report has also being sent to police, prison service, and fire and rescue services officials, who were in senior positions at the time of the Carmel fire on 2 December 2010. Lindenstrauss also warned that his report would “expose serious failures that require immediate correction.” After the State Comptroller’s Office has received responses from all those audited, he will compile the final report and release it to the public.

Sources close to Interior Minister Yishai and Finance Minister Steinitz criticised Lindenstrauss’s report. Yishay dismissed suggestions that he will resign as a result of the report. Steinitz similarly rejected the criticism.

The Mount Carmel forest fire in December 2010 claimed the lives of 44 people, among them 37 Prisons Service cadets and their commanding officers, who died when their bus was engulfed by flames. The blaze caused widespread damage to land and property, totalling millions of shekels. An estimated 1.5 million trees were destroyed.