Four people — a father and his three children — died in a blaze in an 11-story building in Givatayim near Tel Aviv on Saturday morning. The mother is in a hospital, in serious condition.
Fire fighters and police say the blaze apparently started from a short-circuit due to dripping water in the fuse box cupboard on the fourth or fifth floors.
Yitzhak Aroesti, 41, and his three children, Itai, 8, Idit, 6, and Yair, 4, were trapped in their fifth-floor apartment and apparently died of smoke inhalation. Their mother, Dafna, 40, was Sunday reported to be in serious condition. Sixteen other residents were rushed to the hospital, most of them with light injuries.
The blaze, reported at about 5 a.m., quickly spread up the elevator shaft and the stairwell, sending dense smoke throughout the structure to the upper stories.
The Aroesti family had been preparing to move to a new apartment next week.
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