“Anything that scares the prisoners is excellent in my eyes. They are afraid; maybe we laugh about it, but they are not laughing. They talk about it and do not sleep at night,” Ben Gvir said.
The remarks have drawn condemnation from critics who argue that the minister’s comments show disregard for the dignity and well-being of Palestinian prisoners and reflect a punitive approach centered on intimidation.
Ben Gvir responded to criticism by saying: “They say Ben Gvir is crazy, but maybe Israel needed this crazy person.”
The Israeli regime’s minister also attacked an interim court decision blocking the plan, calling judicial intervention in prison service decisions “a disgrace” and “a scandal.”
“If guard dogs can be used, I do not understand why crocodiles cannot be used,” Ben Gvir said.
Israeli media reported that the animal rights group “Let Animals Live” filed a petition against Ben Gvir, environmental protection minister Idit Silman, and the Israel Prison Service, seeking to permanently stop the proposal.
Earlier this month, Ben Gvir announced that Israel would use Nile crocodiles as prison guards for Palestinian political prisoners. The program will begin at Ketziot Prison, Israel’s largest, in the Naqab (Negev) desert. The prison served as a concentration camp where thousands of Palestinians were incarcerated between 1988 and 1995 during the First Intifada.
Palestinians knew Ketziot as Ansar III camp. To facilitate this plan, Silman declared the crocodile a “cultivated wild animal”. Under this new taxonomy, the reptiles will be released into moats around Israel’s dungeons, where Palestinians are imprisoned and treated like animals.
Ben Gvir was inspired by the new Florida migrant detention center, dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz”, which US President Donald Trump toured last year. This prison of horrors “sits in a vast subtropical wetland filled with alligators, crocodiles and pythons”.