Feature: Gaza animal lover sells house to save tiger from zoo hardship

In a strange move, a Palestinian animal breeder put up his home for sale to buy a tiger from a local Gaza zoo.

Sa'ad el-Jammal, 55, a civil employee of public sector in the Gaza Strip, is seeking 23,000 U.S. dollars for buying a tiger from a local zoo in Khan Younis, south of the coastal enclave. The South Park Zoo intends to sell the tiger due to economic hardship.

El-Jammal has been attending the tiger almost every day to feed him since it was announced for sale by the zoo, in hope of owning him one day. He told Xinhua that he is enthusiastic about animal breeding.

Standing before the tiger cage at the zoo, he explained that he is "excited about buying it because it is a unique species and is the only one of its kind in the Gaza Strip."

He said his family supports his decision, and they will move, with the tiger, to his parents' house in the south of the strip, not far from the zoo, if he becomes the owner of the tiger. El-Jammal promised to provide a suitable place for it.

El-Jammal said that he previously bred lions and believed that he can breed a tiger too. He said he intends to bring in a tigress for the purpose of mating, and love to see some tiger cubs in the future.

El-Jammal bought the two lions from the South Park Zoo. He let his five children play with the lions until the cubs were 10 months old. An international animal charity organization then bought the cubs and transferred them to a natural reserve in Jordan last summer.

The tiger, el-Jammal intends to buy, was brought into Gaza in July 2007 through underground tunnels between Egypt and the Gaza Strip, when it was only two months old and weighed 2 kg.

Mohamad Owaidah, manager of the zoo, told Xinhua that his father managed to bring the tiger after a daunting trip from Australia to Egypt and then to the Gaza Strip, costing him a lot of money. The zoo wants to sell the tiger for 23,000 U.S. dollars now.

Owaidah said that due to economic hardships and lack of visitors to the zoo, they have to sell the tiger who now weighs about 200 kg.

According to Owaidah, the harsh economic conditions, the Israeli blockade and the multiple bombardments around the zoo caused the death of many animals.

The zoo manager explained that the tiger's daily food costs about 100 U.S. dollars and that he could not afford it anymore. Owaidah called on animal charities to buy his animals or help him rehabilitate the zoo.

He said that his family has invested nearly two million U.S. dollars in the zoo, and at its boom period the zoo homed some 80 kinds of animals and birds, but the number has reduced to 10 now.

The 12-acre zoo is the only one in the southern part of the strip, and almost all animals and birds were smuggled from Egypt through tunnels in Rafah area.

Gaza tunnels were used as an alternative route for human and goods movement after Israel besieged the strip following the seizure of the enclave by Hamas in 2007.

Moreover, Egypt has taken measures to destroy the tunnels on the border since mid-2013, citing anti-terror considerations.

Palestinian security officials said that Egypt has been pumping sea water into pools along the border with Gaza and into the earth since September last year, in order to destroy all underground tunnels.

Meanwhile Hamas condemned it as a dangerous step that will likely affect the underground water and put some Palestinian houses at risk.

According to a World Bank report released last year, Gaza's economy was on the "verge of collapse," saying the unemployment rate there was the highest in the world and calling on Israel and international donors to remedy the situation.

The report charged that "blockades, war and poor governance" have strangled the economy of Gaza, ruled by the Islamic Hamas movement.

Israel has carried out three military offensives against Gaza from 2008 to 2014. Endit