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An Israeli court has temporarily blocked a plan, cooked up by far right minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, to construct a moat full of crocodiles around a notoriously abusive prison that holds Palestinians.
The injunction was issued on Sunday against the transfer of crocodiles to the facility in response to a petition filed over concerns that the crocodiles would be harmed or mistreated.
Last month, Israeli officials stripped the Nile crocodile of its protected status to pave the way for Ben-Gvir’s plan to surround the Ketziot Prison and torture camp with the animals. Construction swiftly began on the moat as workers started digging the moat around one of the “special wings” inside the camp, Israeli sources said.
Ben-Gvir, who presides over Israel’s prisons as national security minister, has said that the idea was inspired by U.S. President Donald Trump’s “Alligator Alcatraz,” the immigration jail in Florida that was shuttered after reports of horrific human rights abuses.
The idea has been condemned as another racist way to torture Palestinian prisoners, who have already reportedly faced mutilation and rape by dogs trained by Israeli officials to attack Palestinians being imprisoned in torture camps.
It was not concern over human rights abuses that has paused the plan, however. Jerusalem District Court Judge Avraham Rubin issued his temporary injunction because “the expected harm to the crocodiles merit[s] investigation and justif[ies] issuing an order prohibiting the transfer, or any action related to locating or preparing crocodiles for transfer,” he wrote, per Times of Israel.
The decision was made in response to a filing by animal welfare group Let the Animals Live, which argued that the change in classification for the crocodile species was done improperly. The organization said that “crocodiles are not weapons, a means of punishment, or props for a political campaign,” and that the injunction will prevent “severe suffering to the animals.”
Israel’s Nature and Parks Authority also raised its concerns about the prison plan in a statement, saying that “a large, longevous, non-native predator into the ecosystem could create numerous and varied risks to both Israel’s natural environment and the public.”
Ben-Gvir, meanwhile, condemned the move. “We know the terrorists are trembling at the prospect of the alligators’ arrival, but today the court came to their aid,” he said, according to Haaretz.
The Israeli minister is known for his racism against Palestinians and abuse of prisoners. In a video that circulated over the weekend, Ben-Gvir met with a prisoner and mocked them for saying that the conditions in the prison were poor. “This is not a hotel,” he told the prisoner, who said that they are not being given proper food and water.
The prison exists for detainees “to think about what [they] did,” Ben-Gvir went on, despite the fact that Israel is imprisoning at least 3,300 Palestinians without charges.
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