On Sunday, a large forest fire broke out in the Valley of the Cross in western Jerusalem, resulting in damage to part of the nearby Israel Museum's roof and the evacuation of the entire institution. According to Israeli state media, authorities are now investigating the fire as suspected arson, and have identified at least three different nearby locations from which the blaze is believed to have been started.
At around 12:40pm on Sunday 2 June, the fire began to spread from the Valley of the Cross, home to an 11th-century Eastern Orthodox monastery, with the flames quickly advancing towards the Israel Museum, aided by unseasonably high temperatures and strong winds. Fire and rescue services deployed several teams. Police instructed the public to avoid the entire area and evacuated the museum. The fire was contained by 4pm on Sunday, and was fully extinguished with the help of eight firefighting planes.
The Israel Museum issued a statement on Monday saying that no staff were injured and no artworks or artefacts were damaged. The museum confirmed in the statement that some minimal damage had been done to the roof of the building housing the museum’s Ruth Youth Wing. Fortunately, no school groups were in the Youth Wing at the time. (Sunday is the first day of the work week in Israel; it is therefore closed to visitors on those days). The museum opened to visitors on Monday as usual.
An investigation into the cause of the fire is still ongoing. While it is being treated as arson, no information was available on Tuesday morning regarding a suspected motive.
The Israel Museum is an encyclopaedic institution housing some 500,000 artworks and artefacts ranging from prehistoric to contemporary art. It is considered one of the world’s leading archaeology museums, with an extensive Biblical and Holy Land archaeology collection. It is also home to the Dead Sea Scrolls, a set of ancient Jewish manuscripts dating back to the third century BC. The scrolls are kept in the museum’s Shrine of the Book wing, along with several other ancient Jewish manuscripts, including the Aleppo Codex.
The Shrine of the Book is itself one of the highlights within the Museum’s sprawling campus. The iconic structure, designed by the architects Armand Bartos and Frederick Kiesler and shaped to resemble the top of an amphora, is the only of Kiesler’s experimental architectural designs to ever be realised.