A pestilence on our house

The tragic death of two toddlers in Jerusalem from exposure to a lethal pesticide captivates the Israeli press; their pictures and the story of their family’s poisoning dominates the front pages on Thursday.

Yedioth Ahronoth says what began as “pest control in a Jerusalem apartment ended in tragedy.” Maariv calls the incident, in which a family of six was exposed to phosphine gas, which is used as a pesticide in fumigations, “the extermination disaster.” Its headline says that after Yael and Avigail Gross’s deaths, their “older brothers are fighting for their lives.” Israel Hayom dubs it “an incomprehensible calamity in Jerusalem.” Haaretz runs an overline quoting exterminators saying “competition is causing a cheapening of security measures.”

Yedioth writes that Michal and Shimon Gross lost their two daughters in the afternoon on Wednesday while two of their two sons, Yitzhak, 5, and Michael, 7, were in critical condition in a Petah Tikva hospital by the evening. Shimon was also suffering from the effects of the gas.

Israel Hayom quotes Commander Moshe Ohana, deputy chief of Jerusalem’s firefighters, saying that the level of phosphine in the apartment was off the charts and highly toxic.

“[Phosphine] is a very poisonous material, with a toxicity level like that of sarin gas — like chemical warfare agents,” it quotes him saying.

Maariv reports that the Grosses had an exterminator come to their home to gas a room on Monday. The exterminator, who remains unnamed, is under arrest on suspicion of negligence. According to initial investigations cited by Maariv, “the exterminator left capsules containing pesticide forbidden from use in a house in one of the rooms. He sealed the room and intended to return on Friday to retrieve the capsules. Apparently the seal wasn’t enough, and the substance leaked into the house.”

Haaretz quotes extermination experts saying the man “broke many prohibitions, foremost spraying a chemical forbidden from use in residential buildings.” The paper adds that with a boom in the extermination industry, hundreds of exterminators are using phosphine — a gas intended for rodent extermination — in violation of the law and Environmental Protection Agency regulations.

The Shin Bet security service also told the press on Wednesday that it had stymied an al-Qaeda plot to attack the US Embassy in Israel and Jerusalem’s International Convention Center. Haaretz reports that the international terror group enlisted the help of residents of East Jerusalem to carry out the planned attacks, and the men were arrested on December 25; the gag order was lifted on Wednesday. Two of the men hold Israeli ID cards.

“Al-Qaeda penetrated into Israel,” Israel Hayom writes. It says the plot “could have been one of the worst terror attacks Israel has known”: two suicide bombers blowing themselves up at the convention center, and a car bomb going off when emergency services arrive; simultaneously, another suicide bombing outside the US Embassy in Tel Aviv.

The security agency tracked the plans of the three suspects on Facebook and Skype. According to Yedioth Ahronoth, Shin Bet officials said the attack was in the latter stages of planning before it was foiled.

Haaretz also says the German government is conditioning grants to Israeli high-tech companies on the inclusion of a clause barring funding to entities in the West Bank or East Jerusalem. “Israel fears the German move will lead other European Union member states to follow suit,” it reports.

Maariv’s front page runs US Secretary of State John Kerry’s statement at the opening day of the Geneva II peace talks in Montreux, Switzerland calling Syrian President Bashar Assad “Mister Terror.”

On a lighter-than-air note, the planes of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani coincidentally parked alongside one another on the tarmac in Zurich, Switzerland, on Wednesday, providing a point of interest for the Israeli press. The two heads of state landed in Zurich en route to Davos for the World Economic Forum.

Yedioth Ahronoth runs a headline to the effect of “So close, yet so far,” noting that “the leaders of the two states will be struggling in the coming days over global public opinion.” According to Israel Hayom, when reporters asked President Shimon Peres, who traveled with Netanyahu to Davos, about the neighboring plane, he joked, “We’re flying back with them.”