Israeli officials plan to add crocodiles around prison holding Palestinians

WASHINGTON (TNND) — Israeli officials are planning to add crocodile-filled moats around a prison holding Palestinians, similar to Florida’s now-defunct “Alligator Alcatraz” immigration detention center.

Israel’s environmental protection minister, Idit Silman, has reclassified the Nile crocodile as a “tended wild animal,” allowing their use at detention centers, The Telegraph reported Friday.

Israeli national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir is apparently looking to initially introduce the crocodiles to Ketziot Prison, a maximum-security jail in southern Israel that holds Palestinian prisoners.

The prison will be modeled after Alligator Alcatraz, the U.S. immigration detention facility that closed last month.

Ben-Gvir first proposed the plan in December during consultations with the prison service commissioner, Kobi Yaakob.

Israeli senior prison officials toured a crocodile farm in Hamat Gader in northern Israel as part of a preliminary assessment.

Israel’s nature and parks authority said the proposal was impossible because wild animals are only allowed to be held for educational and research purposes.

“We need to protect them, not have them protect us. That is not the spirit of the law,” officials said.

Classifying the Nile crocodile as a “tended wild animal” would allow the reptiles to be kept on prison grounds, subject to animal welfare requirements.

Israel’s environmental protection ministry’s legal adviser, Neta Drori, said there was inadequate professional and factual evidence to support the plans. She noted that there was no precedent for using crocodiles as a security measure.

“With regard to the use in the United States, it was noted that this was a short-lived trial that was discontinued. It apparently took place in an area where crocodiles already occur in the wild, and there is therefore no basis for comparison,” Drori said.

Alligator Alcatraz was opened in July 2025 on an abandoned airstrip surrounded by an alligator-infested swamp. U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams ordered the facility to shut down operations over environmental concerns.