Thread by @ChrisO_wiki

1/ Israel has effectively reclassified crocodiles as livestock to facilitate a plan to dig moats filled with crocodiles around prisons housing Palestinian detainees. It's a pet project of the far-right National Security Minister, Itamar Ben Gvir. ⬇️

2/ The plan emerged in December 2025, apparently inspired by the notorious 'Alligator Alcatraz' detention centre in Florida (which is now closed). Prison officials have toured a crocodile farm in northern Israel which has been tipped as a possible supplier of crocodiles.

3/ The Israel Prison Service reportedly envisages digging moats around prisons and filling them with crocodiles. An IPS report claims that it would "significantly reduce ongoing security costs while also creating a strong deterrent against escape attempts by security prisoners."

4/ However, Israel's Nature and Parks Authority nixed the proposal on the grounds that regulations stipulated that crocodiles could only be kept for purposes such as education and research – essentially confining them to zoos.

5/ To get around this, Environmental Protection Minister Idit Silman has reclassified the Nile crocodile as a "tended wild animal" which can be "kept for security purposes," which would allow prisons to keep crocodiles on prison grounds, subject to animal welfare requirements.

6/ The decision reportedly comes against legal advice that there was "no known professional precedent for using crocodiles as a security measure at modern prisons, contrary to the Prison Service’s claim that they had been used for this purpose in the US and South America."

7/ It's also been pointed out that Florida's 'Alligator Alcatraz' was situated in an area where wild alligators already live, rather than animals having to be specially shipped in to guard the inmates.

8/ Historically, despite the Prison Service's claims, there have been few known cases of dangerous predators (other than dogs) being used to guard prisoners. Medieval accounts of castle moats filled with crocodiles, snakes, lions, or bears are generally regarded as apocryphal.

9/ A 2015 proposal by Indonesia's anti-narcotics chief suggested a crocodile-guarded prison island for death-row drug offenders (on the grounds that crocodiles "can't be bribed"), but it remained a suggestion and was not implemented.

10/ The reasons why large predators have generally not been used to control prisoners are fairly predictable:

– They are unpredictable and difficult to control.
– They require significant care and feeding.
– They may attack guards as well as prisoners.

11/ – They can escape or die, reducing their effectiveness.
– Physical barriers, armed guards, and trained dogs are generally more reliable and less costly.

12/ These risks are magnified in the case of Nile crocodiles, which are among the most dangerous animals in the world to humans, and by most measures the most lethal crocodilian species.

13/ They are responsible for more human deaths annually than any other crocodilian species. Estimates suggest several hundred to as many as 1,000+ attacks per year across Africa, with a significant fatality rate caused by the animals' immense bite force.

14/ These risks suggest that the crocodiles would be significantly more dangerous to the guards than the prisoners, with prison escapes already a rare occurrence. However, they "look cool", so apparently that is what matters most in this case. /end

Sources:
🔹 timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry…
🔹 jpost.com/israel-news/po…
🔹 israelnationalnews.com/news/430295