On Wednesday, as Israel marked Yom HaZikaron (Day of Remembrance) to remember the tens of thousands of Israelis who have died defending the Jewish state, fires broke out, raging in the Judean Hills, and Palestinians celebrated while giving instructions to ignite more fires.

A national state of emergency has been declared here in Israel due to the fires. Praying for everyone’s safety. 🙏🏻 pic.twitter.com/l8DdvyiKr7

— Montana Tucker (@montanatucker) April 30, 2025

Arab arsonists are starting fires all over Jerusalem. 3 have been arrested so far.

The photos and videos out of Israel are harrowing.

Greece and Italy are reportedly sending fire fighters to assist. pic.twitter.com/uDAkH2KRbN

— Marina Medvin 🇺🇸 (@MarinaMedvin) April 30, 2025

Palestinian terrorists are calling for more arson on social media. pic.twitter.com/QWTGBDB4z2

— Marina Medvin 🇺🇸 (@MarinaMedvin) April 30, 2025

How do you react to a whole group of people who actually set your country on fire?
And to those, easily identifiable, who support it on social media?
Right suggestions only. pic.twitter.com/gEJKjq1luY

— An Israeli mother (@IsraMum) April 30, 2025

The roaring fires near Jerusalem forced the closure of Israel’s main artery, Highway 1. Fire and Rescue Commissioner Eyal Caspi announced that the alert level had been raised to the highest degree. Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar reached out to Greece, Croatia, Italy, Cyprus, and Bulgaria for aid, although any help was not expected before Wednesday night.

Palestinians who hate Israel routinely refer to all Israelis as “settlers.” The terrorist group Hamas exhorted Palestinians to “burn whatever you can of groves, forests, and settler homes,” on Telegram, adding, “Youth of the West Bank, youth of Jerusalem, and those inside Israel, set their cars ablaze… Gaza awaits the revenge of the free,” The Jerusalem Post reported.

The Jenin News Network Telegram channel urged Palestinians to “burn the groves near the settlements” on Telegram as well.

Palestinian news channel “Akhbar Filastin” posted on X, “A call to the revolutionary youth and all the heroes of the West Bank.. Settlers’ homes and the surrounding areas are your target. Burn them with your Molotov cocktails and set fire to the grass near the settlement outposts.”

“Israeli police reportedly arrested or detained three suspects in connection with fires that broke out on Wednesday,” JNS reported.

Knesset member Zvi Sukkot stated, “As the fires spread, calls are being published on Arab networks to ‘set fire to the occupied forests and settlements,’ and there is a real concern, based on past experience, that Palestinians will attempt to set additional fires in Judea and Samaria and throughout the country.”

Yom HaZikaron ends Wednesday night, at which time Yom Ha’Atzmaut (Independence Day) begins. All Independence Day performances and activities were canceled.

On Wednesday, Harvard University released its internal report titled “Presidential Task Force on Combating Antisemitism and Anti-Israeli Bias.”

“[A] new generation of student activists seems to have begun to perceive Israel as a symbol and vehicle of the evils of the United States and the rest of the Western world,” the report stated. “A Harvard faculty member who works closely with students reported to us that some Jewish students choose to hide their identities on campus, which was something the faculty member could not have imagined would ever be the case at Harvard.”

The report noted an “antisemitic cartoon circulated in February 2024 by groups of pro-Palestinian Harvard students, staff, and faculty on social media. The cartoon, depicting a white hand with a Jewish star holding a noose around the heads of a Black man (Muhammad Ali) and an Arab man (Gamal Abdel Nasser), came from 1960s Black student activism, and it was widely condemned as antisemitic by Black leaders at that time.”

“The more time we spent on this problem, the more we learned about how demonization of Israel has impacted a much wider swath of campus life than we would have imagined,” the authors wrote. “Pro-Palestinian activists often target what they see as key planks in Western support for Israel: 1. the belief that Israeli Jews have a historic connection to the territory of the modern State of Israel; 2. a view of Israel as a Western liberal democracy; and 3. the post-Holocaust social prohibition on antisemitism, whether expressed as outright Jew-hatred or the denial of the State of Israel’s legitimacy.”

The report references the testimony of former Harvard President Claudine Gay before Congress, where Congresswoman Elise Stefanik (R-NY) and others asked her whether people calling for genocide against Jews violated Harvard’s code of conduct. Gay insisted that it “depends on the context.” The Harvard report called Gay’s answers “strained efforts,” writing, “What seemed to many like President Gay’s strained efforts to avoid providing a clear yes or no answer ignited a firestorm of criticism nationwide.”

The report noted a letter to the editor of the Harvard Crimson from the student president of Harvard Hillel’s undergraduate student Jewish community stating, “Being Jewish at Harvard today is vastly more difficult than it was [for college students] in the ‘90s.”

“We were surprised to learn just how correct this seems to be,” the report stated.