November 16, 2012

(JTA) — Two Israeli Bedouin children have died in a fire which they apparently started inside a parked car.

The boys, ages three and four, may have been playing with matches that belonged to their parents, a police spokesperson told Israel’s Army Radio. The parents of the the toddlers left them unattended at an olive grove near Be’er Sheva and they were able to enter the car without being noticed, the report said. 

The mother reportedly told police she never saw the boys enter the car and that when she saw the vehicle it was already engulfed in flames. The parents, who live near Dudaim in Israel’s Negev desert, were released after police questioning. Police have not decided whether to charge them with negligence.  

Last year, a 4-year-old Arab Israeli child was burned alive in a car near Karmiel, in Israel’s north. His parents left him to wait in the car as they were picking olives.

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