The Israeli government is planning to surround prisons with moats full of crocodiles [Getty]
Crocodiles might soon surround Israeli prisons holding Palestinian prisoners, as the far-right government moves orward with plans on Friday which rights groups have described as a method of “psychological intimidation”.
The move, proposed by extremist National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, seeks to introduce the reptiles to Ketziot Prison in southern Israel, which holds Palestinian detainees.
The extremist minister was reportedly inspired by Florida’s controversial immigration detention centre, “Alligator Alcatraz”, a remote facility located in the Florida Everglades, surrounded by dangerous wildlife like alligators, crocodiles, and pythons that prevent inmates from escaping.
“The mere proposal to surround prisons with crocodiles, and to pursue legal measures to implement such an idea, reflects an unprecedented level of punitive policies based on revenge and psychological intimidation against Palestinian prisoners,” Abdullah Al-Zaghari, head of the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society (PPS), told The New Arab.
“It goes beyond the concept of conventional security measures and instead seeks to entrench an environment founded on fear, humiliation, and the dehumanisation of prisoners.”
While it is unclear when the crocodiles will be introduced, Al-Zaghari said that promoting the idea at all carries a psychological and political message, portraying prisoners as outside the framework of the rights and legal protections guaranteed by international law and humanitarian conventions.
“This step reflects an unprecedented descent into sadistic brutality,” Muzaffar Zouqan, from the PPS, told The New Arab.
Zouqan believes the decision to establish a prison surrounded by crocodiles will further worsen the prisoners’ psychological condition, amid the prisons’ current use of abusive policies including starvation, abuse, solitary confinement, beatings and deliberate medical neglect.
PPS’s Amani Sarahna also echoed the same sentiment, saying the proposal is part of the abuse inflicted on Palestinian prisoners, where Israel employs a wide range of psychological methods through the prison system and its broader structure.
“The primary objective is to destroy [Palestinian detainees] psychologically, after using methods that have already devastated them physically,” Amani Sarahna told The New Arab. “For us, this reflects a level of brutality for which we no longer have the vocabulary to adequately describe.”
“We have reached a point where there are simply no words left to convey the level of brutality Palestinian prisoners are subjected to.”
Sarahna highlights that such methods are not new, with Israeli forces having practised these policies for decades, albeit through different methods and tools, all aimed at stripping Palestinians of their humanity, their national identity and everything that defines them.
“It reflects the level of moral degradation, sadism and bankruptcy of the occupation,” Sarahna adds. “When any system reaches this degree of brutality, the question becomes: why does it resort to such spectacles?”
“These are spectacles through which it tries to escape its own crises by expressing ever greater brutality.”
Ben-Gvir first proposed the idea in a December meeting with Prison Service chief Kobi Yaakobi, Channel 13 reported.
“As specialists, we are no longer surprised by Ben-Gvir’s behaviour,” Sarahna said. “Part of his extremist ambitions is to create these kinds of spectacles, which reflect his enduring desire to destroy Palestinians, kill Palestinians and target their very existence – even through these symbolic displays.”
The Israeli government stripped Nile crocodiles of their protected status on Thursday to make way for the proposal, making the animal an instrument of incarceration and deterrence, rather than wildlife to be conserved – overriding the objections of the Israel Nature and Parks Authority (INPA).
Environment Minister Idit Silman reclassified the animals as a “specially managed wild animal”, allowing the state to keep the animals for security purposes.
Israel’s Channel 7 reports the Israel Prison Service has already begun visiting zoos to learn how to handle crocodiles.
Sarahna questioned why the Israeli prison system resorts to these kinds of practices and policies, which only add to the brutality that already exists.
“We are talking about an open process of annihilation inside Israeli prisons,” she said. “The effects of imprisonment do not end when a prisoner is released – they continue long afterwards.”
“That is why we say there is also a systematic process of annihilation taking place inside the prisons through the institutionalised structure of torture.”
