Human Entertainment

Now that is truly pathetic.  How is it that a geographic area that is held by the international community to be under an oppressive siege, claiming that its people are oppressed and poverty-stricken, their basic human rights in constant peril, a shortage of fundamental necessities a way of life, yet within the Gaza Strip there are no fewer than five animal zoos.

A zoo in Gaza City painted a donkey with zebra stripes to entertain zoo goers with the notion that this was an exotic African creature, no mere donkey.  Evidently two zebras were killed during the Israeli offensive, and the zoo could not afford to replace them. 

Zoo owners have brought exotic animals through smuggling tunnels from Egypt, when Israel placed a moratorium on transport through conventional means after Hamas took possession of Gaza.

At the Khan Yunis wildlife park there is no zoo-keeper.  Ailing animals are treated remotely over the telephone by contact with veterinarians in Egypt.  Despite which, it is a popular public attraction in Gaza, overcrowded by people seeking to be entertained by the presence of wild animals from exotic locales.

There also, with the use of rudimentary taxidermy skills, the owner, Mohamed Awaida, has been embalming animals that have died.  Such as a lion that starved to death, a monkey, and a porcupine.  They are among ten animals that have thus far been preserved through taxidermy techniques taken from the Internet.

"The idea to mummify animals started after the Gaza war because a number of animals like the lion, the tiger, monkeys and crocodiles died", explained Mr. Awaida.  "So we asked around and we learned from the web how to start."

An ostrich, a tiger and a deer, kept in makeshift cages made of shipping crates and the remains of Israeli settlements which were dismantled in 2005, are seen alongside the mummified remains of other animals whose presence rounds out the offerings at the various zoos.

Mr. Awaida had abandoned his zoo during Operation Cast Lead, and the animals had died of starvation.  What remains, however, comprises, in those five zoos, a pathetic handful of animals barely maintained in dreadful conditions for the amusement of the inhabitants of Gaza.

Macabre and bizarre entertainment that nastily mocks the rights to humane existence of animals, imposed by people who claim their human rights have been broached and broken by the actions of an oppressor.