AP Photo/Eraldo Peres

In conversation with Brazilian President Bolsonaro, Israel’s prime minister pledges Israeli assistance with wildfires.

By Abigail Klein Leichman, Israel21.org

In response to devastating fires that have been raging in the Amazon rainforest for the past three weeks, Israel is sending a firefighting aircraft with flame-retardant chemicals to Brazil.

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro tweeted on August 25 that he’d received a phone call from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu offering the equipment to aid the firefighting efforts of the Brazilian armed forces and had gratefully accepted.

Netanyahu tweeted that he told Bolsonaro the flame retardants would be dispatched immediately. The Prime Minister’s Office had no further updates as of today.

Earlier this month, Brazil declared a state of emergency over the rising number of fires in the region. The Amazon, the largest rainforest in the world, is known as the “lungs of the world” for its role in absorbing carbon dioxide and producing oxygen. An estimated one million indigenous people and three million species of plants and animals live in the rainforest.