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Beit Lahiya, Gaza Strip - Throughout Israel's military assault on Gaza, Wasef Hamad
risked his life on a regular basis. But unlike most Palestinians living under
Israeli bombardment, Hamad did not venture out in the midst of Israeli air
strikes to bring food to his displaced family, take refuge at a local school,
or to check on his destroyed home.
Instead, Hamad put himself in
danger to protect lions, monkeys, ostriches, and other animals, all of which
were slowly starving at the Bissan Zoo, in the northern Gaza town of Beit
Lahiya.
"I came here one time to have
a quick glimpse from afar, but I saw death in my eyes… a bomb from an F-16
hit as close as 200 metres [away]," the 25-year-old told Al Jazeera.
The zoo covers about 2.5 acres of
a 60-acre park near the border between Israel and Gaza. The animal cages are
surrounded by football fields, citrus and olive groves, and play areas for
children. A branch of Al-Quds University is to the south of the park, while a
police station and United Nations aid distribution centre are to the east.
The area experienced frequent
Israeli bombings; Hamad was only able to visit the animals when a 72-hour
ceasefire came into effect on August 5. "More than half of the
animals were killed, most of them by shrapnel, and I think some birds died of
thirst," Hamad said. Continue reading.....
At least 1,965 Palestinians have
been killed and almost 10,000 more have been injured since Israel's military
operation in Gaza began on July 8, according to the United Nations.
Sixty-four Israeli soldiers and three Israeli civilians have also been
killed.
Israeli air strikes on Gaza have
also had a devastating impact on local infrastructure; the UN has reported
that 16,800 homes have been destroyed, and approximately 250 factories and construction sites have
been damaged, among other properties.
The zoo's three-story
administrative building was destroyed after being hit by what appeared to be
multiple air strikes; one bomb left a three-metre deep crater nearby. What
was once a rare stretch of green space located near the zoo, normally used by
Palestinian families from Beit Lahiya, Beit Hanoun, and Jabaliya refugee
camp, was reduced to a brown and desiccated patch.
"They destroyed the water
well. The grass was not watered for over 40 days," Hamad
said. "There is barely [any] water for human beings to drink,"
he added, shaking his head as he continued to the zoo.
Hamad, a father of three, has
worked at the park since it was first opened in 2011. Today, cages have been
transformed into tangled heaps of metal bars and crushed concrete. The smell
of rotting animal carcasses permeates the air.
In one of the cages, a grey male
baboon sits, watching visitors while the bodies of a dead female and two
young baboons lie on the floor. "He refuses to let anybody inside the
cage. He attacked my colleague when he entered to remove them," Hamad
said. Another cage houses only the motionless body of a peacock.
The animals that survived the
bombings were quiet, behaving almost as though they were in shock. A
crocodile, famous for having escaped
from the zoo in 2012, remained docile as a duck drank water from his pool.
While the zoo's three lions were
unharmed - their cage is more fortified than the others, Hamad explained -
seven monkeys, two ostriches, a deer, a llama, two storks, some porcupines,
and eight eagles were killed. The zoo was originally home to about 50
animals, and dozens of birds.
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We put the buckets [of water]
near the metal bars for the ostriches, and dropped [them] on ropes to the
lions.
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"They are hungry; bringing
them meat requires a stable situation in which municipal slaughterhouses
[can] work regularly to bring their leftovers for the lions," Hamad
explained.
Some animals only survived the
Israeli shelling because Palestinians living nearby brought them water during
lulls in the violence. Among them was 15-year-old Ibraheem Hnideq, whose home
is about 150 metres from the zoo.
"We live here… I used to
visit this park and zoo," he told Al Jazeera. "I thought... [the
animals] must be thirsty because the zookeepers don't come." Hnideq said
that he went alone to bring the animals water because his friends were too
afraid to enter the area.
"I went with one bucket of
water, but it was not enough." The next day, however, some friends
joined him. "We put the buckets near the metal bars for the ostriches,
and dropped [them] on ropes to the lions."
Most of the animals at the zoo
were smuggled into Gaza from Egypt through underground tunnels. With the near-total destruction of
these tunnels after the ouster of Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi last year,
Hamad said it won’t be easy to bring in new animals to replace those that
died.
"The lions are also sick and
need vaccines that are unavailable here, and we can't bring them from Egypt
anymore."
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