The Israeli Minister for Environmental Protection, Idit Silman, has reclassified crocodiles from wild animals to “wildlife bred in captivity,” a move that paves the way for the use of the reptiles for security purposes, including deterring prison escapes. The decision was welcomed by the Minister of National Security Itamar Ben Gvir, who in December had proposed surrounding a prison for Palestinian detainees with crocodiles, following the example of the Trump-style immigrant detention center “Alligator Alcatraz” in Florida.
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“Are you thinking of trying to escape? Think again,” Ben Gvir wrote in a Facebook post on Thursday, alongside an AI-generated image showing him with a crocodile on a leash.
The caption read: “Ministers Ben Gvir and Silman collaborate and surround prisons with crocodiles!”
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The reclassification transfers the supervision of the animals from the authority to a “security entity,” which includes the Israeli Prison Service, headed by Ben Gvir himself.
Israeli media reported that Ben Gvir intends to deploy crocodiles around the Ketziot prison, in southern Israel, which holds many Hamas militants captured after the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, which triggered the more than two-year war in Gaza.
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