Occupied Palestine (QNN)- Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has proposed establishing a “detention facility surrounded by crocodiles” to hold Palestinian detainees, marking the latest move in Israel’s increasingly oppressive campaign against Palestinians.
Israeli Channel 13 reported on Sunday that the Israel Prison Service (IPS) is reviewing what it described as "an unusual proposal" aimed at preventing jailbreak attempts.
Ben-Gvir raised the idea during a recent security briefing with IPS Chief Commissioner Kobi Yaakobi, according to Channel 13.
The report said the proposed site would be near Hamat Gader, a hot springs resort in northern Israel in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights.
According to Israeli media, the resort already has a controlled alligator habitat, and crocodiles would be brought in for the prison - housed in a fenced enclosure to prevent escape attempts.
The proposal comes as the Israeli parliament is expected to soon vote on a bill put forward by the far-right minister that would allow the execution of Palestinian detainees allegedly accused of planning or carrying out operations.
The death penalty bill is expected to go through two more readings in the Knesset, including one next week, before being passed into official law.
The bill was initially intended to allow judges to impose the death penalty on Palestinians convicted of killing Israeli settlers on so-called "nationalistic" grounds.
The legislation would not apply to Israeli settlers who kill Palestinians under similar circumstances.
A new addition announced by Ben-Gvir earlier this week expands the draft legislation to include those accused of perpetrating operations on 7 October 2023, who will receive the death penalty as a "mandatory sentence".
Recently, a report released by Israel’s public defender’s office said the detention conditions for Palestinian detainees have grown markedly worse since October 7, with many suffering severe hunger, massive overcrowding, and poor sanitary conditions.
Israeli far-right ministers such as Ben-Gvir have often bragged that their racist policies have led to harsher conditions for Palestinian inmates.
The report said reduced food allotments for Palestinian prisoners introduced after the October 7 attacks on Israel have led to “severe hunger, manifested in sharp weight loss and accompanying physical symptoms including extreme physical weakness and even fainting”, according to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.
The public defender’s report – based on visits to Israeli detention facilities such as Ramon, Megiddo, Ayalon, Shatta, Eshel and Ketziot – also stated that Palestinian detainees “are held in dark cells without lighting, in harsh sanitary conditions, in stifling heat and without ventilation”.
Many detainees suffer poor health conditions as a result, it added.
There are currently more than 10,800 Palestinians held in Israeli jails, including 450 children, 87 women, and 3,629 held without charge or trial.
According to several Palestinian prisoner-monitoring groups, these conditions have persisted even after the Gaza ceasefire was signed.
Since the start of the Israeli genocidal war in Gaza, at least 86 Palestinians have died in Israeli custody, including about 50 from Gaza. Prisoner groups said that the period since October 2023 has seen an "unprecedented" rise in the "systematic crimes practised in [Israeli] prisons," making it the "bloodiest in the history of the prisoner movement since 1967".
