Israel on Thursday dispatched two water-dropping aircraft to help battle a large wildfire that has scorched at least 10,000 acres (4,000 hectares) of forest in the foothills of the Pentadaktylos mountain range in the breakaway north of ethnically divided Cyprus.
The two Israeli aircraft joined another two planes and a helicopter that the Cyprus government sent to fight the blaze following a request from breakaway Turkish Cypriot authorities made through the United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus, or UNFICYP, on the island nation.
