Gaza City
(Palestinian Territories) (AFP) - The lions sit dazed in the shade of their
damaged pen, while nearby the decayed carcases of two vervet monkeys lie
contorted on the grass of a Gaza zoo.
The animals
were caught in the crossfire in over a month of fighting between Israel and
Palestinian militants that killed more than 1,960 Palestinians and 67 people on
the Israeli side.
In one
enclosure at the zoo a fly-covered pelican huddles in the corner with a duck.
Opposite, a small crocodile sits motionless in an inch of stagnant water, next
to the rotting corpse of a stork.
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A Hamadryas
baboon (L) looks at the
carcass of another baboon inside their
cage at the
Bisan City tourist village zoo,
in Beit Hanun, Gaza, on August 14, 2014
(AFP
Photo/Roberto Schmidt)
|
Around the
corner, a baboon picks listlessly at the ground of the tiny pen it shares with
the dried-out remains of another monkey.
Everywhere,
there is a sickly stench from the animals' cages, which have not been cleaned
for weeks.
Shadi
Hamad, the park's director, said the zoo was damaged and that the animals died
as a result of Israeli air strikes.
An Israeli
army spokesman told AFP that the military was looking into allegations that it
fired missiles in the Al-Bisan park area.
Israel
launched an air campaign over Gaza on July 8 to take out militants' rockets,
followed by a ground offensive nine days later to destroy a network of Hamas
cross-border tunnels leading into the Jewish state.
The zoo –-
part of Al-Bisan City -- was built by the Hamas government in 2008 as a tourist
village to give Gazans some relief from the hardships of life in the Strip, and
had a cafeteria and tables where families could sit and relax.
The animals
were all smuggled through tunnels that connected Egypt to Gaza, before the
passages were shut last year with the ouster of Egyptian president Mohamed
Morsi, a key ally of the Islamist movement Hamas.
 |
Zookeeper
Farid al-Hissi feeds lions at the
Bisan City tourist village zoo, in Beit
Hanun, Gaza, on August 14, 2014
(AFP Photo/Roberto Schmidt)
|
"Before
the war the area was very beautiful. There were trees, lots of greenery, palm
trees. It was an area for children, there were playgrounds and areas for
families," zookeeper Farid al-Hissi said.
Hissi got
his job at Al-Bisan after working in a zoo in Israel and because of his love
for animals.
The death
of the animals he cared for has clearly left him in a state of shock.
"Eight
monkeys were killed, and an ostrich was killed too. The lion's enclosure was
wrecked and the zoo was completely destroyed. The Al-Bisan zoo was totally
devastated," he said.
The
administrative centre has been flattened and some of the palm trees lining the
avenue from the entrance down to the animal enclosures have been uprooted.
'Makes you
sad'
The
destruction to the zoo has shaken Hissi badly.
"You
can see that the cages for the animals are badly damaged. When you see it, it
makes you sad because they are in a jail now," he said, standing by the
lion enclosure.
A lion and
lioness lie in a steel pen inside their enclosure, the roof of which has collapsed
from the force of the nearby explosion.
 |
A zookeeper
inspects the damage at the
Bisan City tourist village zoo, in Beit
Hanun, Gaza,
on August 14, 2014
(AFP Photo/Roberto Schmidt)
|
And in a
filthy three-by-three metre (10-by-10 foot) pen, seven mange-ridden wild dogs
zig zag around their enclosure incessantly.
Hissi was
insistent there had been no militant weapons inside the zoo.
But buckled
rectangular metal rocket launch systems lay among the debris on the edge of the
park, near a large building that was also hit by Israeli air strikes. Some
appeared still to be loaded with rockets.
Hamad, the
park's director, was adamant that the rockets had not been fired from inside
the park.
"Maybe
there was a base around Al-Bisan village or next to it. But the enemy decided
and insisted on punishing Al-Bisan village," said the neatly-dressed
director.
"They
punished the park for the presence of the rockets nearby but not inside the
village," he said.
 |
A goose and
an antelope are seen in
their cage at the Bisan City tourist village
zoo, in
Beit Hanun, Gaza, on August 14,
2014 (AFP Photo/Roberto Schmidt)
|
Completed
just six months ago, the park's exhibits range from pigeons and a German
Shepherd in cages to six lions. All were smuggled through tunnels from Egypt.
Although
the park in Jabaliya was relatively unscathed, bombardment had impacted on the
animals psychologically.
"It
was the noise that really affected the animals here. The sound from the bombing
terrified the animals. When the birds heard the shelling they would take flight
and flap around the enclosure in panic because they were so scared," said
Aamir Abu Warda, director of the Jabaliya park.
"The
continuation, the repetition of this killed several birds, and other animals
abandoned their young ones, some of which died," he said.
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