I've always loved Haruki Murakami's story about the destruction of the animals in a zoo in Manchukuo, occupied Manchuria, by Japanese soldiers at the end of WW2. Well, below is Jack Shenker's report on the destruction of animals in the Gaza Zoo, from Guernica Magazine. Read Shenker's whole piece, it's great and precise, the way this is. The photo is by Jason Larkin.
Gaza Zoo opened in 2005 and used to attract up to a thousand
visitors daily before the war. “It’s school groups mainly,” says
assistant zookeeper Saleem Bedowi. “The children need this sort of
leisure activity to distract them from the troubles they face in their
daily lives.” Populated largely with birds, monkeys, reptiles, and farm
animals smuggled through Egyptian border tunnels, the zoo was occupied
by Israeli forces following the start of the ground invasion. Nearly
all of its occupants now lie dead.
Many of the creatures on display were hit by missile attacks during
the opening days of the war, including the zoo’s pregnant camel. Others
succumbed to starvation as the war dragged on; the presence of Israeli
troops on the premises prevented the zookeepers from reaching the
animals and feeding them. A few, including one horse, appear to have
been shot dead by soldiers at point-blank range. Those that survived
the conflict did so by eating the corpses of their brothers and
sisters. “When the Israelis withdrew and I finally made it back inside,
the only animals left alive were crazed with hunger and traumatized by
all the death around them,” says Mr. Bedowi. “They are all terrified
now, even the lions.”
Saher, a five-year-old male lion, and Sabreen, his pregnant
companion, apparently endured the chaos by feeding on the zoo’s small
ostrich population. When Mr. Bedowi returned to the zoo, the lions’
enclosure was empty; he eventually found the pair cowering in the
toilets of the zoo’s administrative building. Graffiti now adorns the
walls of the block, including the message “You lost” scrawled in Hebrew.
In all, 90 percent of the animals died in the conflict, $200,000 of
physical damage was done to the zoo, and the ten families who rely on
the institution for employment are facing an uncertain future. “What
crime did these animals commit?” asks Mr. Bedowi. Israeli sources claim
that the zoo had been booby-trapped by Hamas fighters, making it a
legitimate military target.
