BFF-49 Lions, other animals to be saved from Gaza zoo: welfare group

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ISRAEL-PALESTINIANS-CONFLICT-JORDAN-ANIMALS

Lions, other animals to be saved from Gaza zoo: welfare group

GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories, March 20, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Forty
animals including five lions are to be rescued from squalid conditions in the
Gaza Strip, an animal welfare group said on Wednesday.

The animals would be taken out of a zoo in the Palestinian enclave and
relocated to sanctuaries in Jordan next week, the Four Paws organisation
said.

Among the other animals to be taken out were a hyena, monkeys, wolves and
porcupines, the organisation said in a statement.

The owner of the Rafah Zoo in southern Gaza was not immediately available
for comment.

The zoo hit the headlines last month when the cash-strapped owner revealed
he had declawed one of the lions there, so that customers could play with her
for money.

The organisation condemned the declawing, with almost 150,000 signing a
petition against the treatment.

The animals would be treated and sedated, before being taken through Israel
into Jordan, Four Paws said.

“For far too long, the animals of Rafah Zoo have had to live under
unimaginably dreadful conditions,” said Four Paws veterinarian and head of
mission Amir Khalil.

“We are happy to finally put an end to this horror,” he said in the
statement.

The animal welfare group has previously evacuated two other zoos in Gaza,
where desperate poverty means owners are often unable to provide adequate
conditions.

Israel has imposed a crippling blockade on the Gaza Strip for more than a
decade, measures it says are necessary to isolate the enclave’s Islamist
rulers Hamas.

Israel and Hamas have fought three wars since 2008.

In 2016 Four Paws helped facilitate the transfer of the sole tiger in the
Gaza Strip, with it eventually relocated to South Africa.

In 2017 the organisation rescued a lion and a bear from a zoo in Mosul in
Iraq, the former stronghold of the Islamic State group.

BSS/AFP/RY/1830 hrs