Google – AFP, 19 November 2013
Two-day-old
lion cubs Fajr and Sijil are fed at a zoo in the northern Gaza
Strip town of
Beit Lahia, on November 19, 2013 (AFP, Mohammed Abed)
|
Gaza City
(Palestinian Territories) — Gaza's Hamas-run authorities on Tuesday announced
the birth of two lion cubs in the Palestinian enclave, named in honour of the
last bout of fighting between the Islamists and Israel.
The cubs
were born less than a week after the first anniversary of the eight-day conflict
between Hamas and Israel in November 2012.
"The
lioness gave birth yesterday (Monday) to two cubs, one male and one
female," said Nahed al-Majdub, head of the "Bissan" amusement
park, set up by the Hamas-run interior ministry.
"They
were named Fajr and Sijil," said Majdub, Arabic for dawn and clay.
The names
refer to the Fajr missiles Hamas fired at Israel in the conflict in November
2012 and the name the Palestinian Islamist movement gave to the fighting,
"Operation Stones of Clay."
Two-day-old
lion cubs Fajr and Sijil are seen at a zoo in the northern
Gaza Strip town of
Beit Lahia, on November 19, 2013 (AFP, Mohammed Abed)
|
"It is
the first time lions have been born in the Gaza Strip," Majdub said,
adding that the cubs' parents were imported from Egypt four years ago.
Hamas's
armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, congratulated itself on having
smuggled the cubs' parents past the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip.
The group
said on Twitter that "Despite Israel's unjust siege, Palestinians managed
to smuggle these 2 lions to draw a smile on faces of Gaza kids."
More than
170 Palestinians and six Israelis were killed when hostilities erupted after an
Israeli missile killed Hamas military chief Ahmed Jaabari last November 14.
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