New Year Fire: Mother, 4 children burnt to death

A woman and her four children died in a blaze in their flat in Jerusalem on Sunday, an Israeli police spokesperson said.

Rescue workers broke down the door in an attempt to reach the family and tried in vain to save the 36-year-old woman and her children.

Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said the woman was in her 30s, while her children’s ages ranged from 12 to seven, to an infant.

“What we know until now is that firefighters and emergency units were called into Derech Hebron Road in Talpiot after five people were found there unconscious and later pronounced dead,” said Rosenfeld.

Personnel are investigating whether a Jerusalem apartment fire, killing a mother and her four young daughters on Derech Hebron Road in Talpiot early Sunday evening, was a murder-suicide.

While details of the fire remain unclear, United Hatzalah EMTs and first-responders from its Psycho-trauma Unit were dispatched to the apartment on the major thoroughfare following reports of possible foul play.