Man killed in Jerusalem apartment fire

Medics pull unconscious victim, said to be in his 70s, from burning ground floor residence, fail to resuscitate him

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A man in his 70s was killed in a fire on the ground floor of an apartment building in Jerusalem on Wednesday.

First responders pulled the man from a fire on the city’s Arthur Hantke street in the Ein Karem neighborhood, the Magen David Adom emergency services said. Medics attempted to resuscitate him on the scene but were forced to pronounce his death.

“When we arrived on the scene we saw a fire in a residential building, smoke coming out of windows of an apartment, and from underneath the door, which was locked,” said medic Yaron Natan.

“After firefighters broke down the door, in the entrance to the apartment a man around age 70 was lying there, unconscious, with no pulse and not breathing, and extensive burns to his body. We immediately started CPR but were forced to declare his death,” Yaron said.

It was unclear what ignited the blaze.

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Separately, a 71-year-old Beersheba man succumbed to his wounds and died Tuesday, two weeks after setting himself on fire in a Beersheba courtroom.

Yitzhak Levin died at Sheba Medical Center at Tel Hashomer, where he was hospitalized in the burn unit. He was buried Wednesday at Beersheba’s central cemetery.

Family members told Hebrew-language media Wednesday that Levin suffered from depression, had fallen into debt in his later years, and had refused all help from family and friends.

On Friday, two young boys were killed in an apartment blaze in the central town of Netanya that also injured six others, doctors and rescue workers said.

The two boys, believed aged three and five, were pulled out of the building unconscious, suffering burns and from smoke inhalation. Emergency medics at the scene performed CPR on the boys, before they were rushed to the city’s Laniado Medical Center, where doctors declared them dead.

Six other people were lightly injured from smoke inhalation in the blaze that started in the ground level apartment of a two-story building, including a man and women in their 40s and four children between the ages of 2 and 6, the Magen David Adom emergency service said.

Earlier last week, nine people, including four children, were injured in a separate house fire that broke out in the same coastal city.