By Janet Ekstract, NEW YORK – Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, a man who has made no secret of his hatred for Palestinians, has somehow managed to get the law on his side to build crocodile moats to guard Palestinian detainees at the Ketziot Prison. As the chair of the prominent Israeli human rights group B’Tselem, Orly Noy slammed Gvir’s proposal as “another grotesque example of the cannibal stage in which Israel is at right now.” Noy added that Israeli authorities are actually willing to experiment with outrageous medieval concepts rather than implement basic judicial fairness. Israel’s press reported that Environmental Protection Minister Idit Silman signed an order reclassifying crocodiles as “managed wild animals,” allowing government bodies, including the Israel Prison Service, to keep them at their facilities under specified conditions. Israel’s media has labeled the project the “crocodile prison” and according to Channel 13, Silman’s order added the word “managed” to the legal definition of “wild animals,” paving the way for crocodiles to be transferred to a planned detention facility at Hamat Gader, a hot springs site south of the Sea of Galilee.
According to reports from Ynet, Israeli Minister Silman pushed Gvir’s reclassification through, despite aggressive opposition from her own ministry’s legal adviser and the Israel Nature and Parks Authority. Meanwhile, environmental experts argue that using wild predators as prison infrastructure is not only unfeasible but a clear legal issue and an abuse of wildlife management laws. There are plenty of arguments against such a plan as the financial costs alone are astronomical. According to media reports, just to purchase a single juvenile crocodile is about $8,000 while adult crocodiles cost up to $20,000. Critics point out that to encircle a facility such as the proposed pilot site at Ketziot Prison would require millions of shekels. When the plan was first introduced, it was reported that Israeli police and intelligence officials mocked the plan as a media-driven political stunt. Meanwhile, critics in the wider Israeli media have commented that the “crocodile prison” is a calculated campaign by Ben-Gvir as a diversion toward performative cruelty. This also matches his push for a mandatory death penalty for Palestinian detainees and his deliberate moves to severely degrade prison conditions.
