The Khan Younis Zoo: World’s Worst Zoo

Its very frequent to visit the internet searching for the country’s best zoo or the world’s best zoo. But, its not usual that people search for the world’s worst zoo. However, searching the internet for the meta tag of world’s worst zoo will lead you to a single destiny : ‘The Khan Younis Zoo’.

‘The Khan Younis Zoo’ situated in Gaza was reported in 2016 as the world’s worst zoo. The zoo was so starved of basic amenities that it showcases stuffed carcasses of its own animals in exhibition. While there is nothing wrong in exhibiting stuffed animals, the concern was that all these animals had died because of starvation and lack of care. When a rescue team arrived to evacuate the closing zoo near the Gaza Strip city of Khan Younis in late August 2016, just 15 animals were still alive—the survivors from what had once been a collection of hundreds of animals. They included Laziz, a nine-year-old Bengal tiger, which also was the last tiger in Gaza. There were also five monkeys, an emu, a pelican, two buzzards, two porcupines, two tortoises, and a doe. The doe had lost her fawn to wounds shortly before the rescuers arrived.

Opened in 2007 on three and a half acres next to an amusement park, the Khan Younis Zoo has long been called “the world’s worst zoo” by animal-welfare groups such as Four Paws and various international media outlets. Animals there were reported to have starved to death during military conflicts between Gaza’s Hamas-led government and neighboring Israel. And last year, the surviving animals began sharing their cramped cages with the dead: More than 50 dead animals—including Laziz’s mate—were taxidermied by the zoo staff and were thus showcased as stuffed animals.

Abu Diab Oweida, the Palestinian businessman who owned the zoo, said many animals died during that conflict, and that the mummifications were an effort by the zoo’s staff “to prove to the whole world that even animals (were) affected.”

Whatever be the justification for the incident, it cannot suffice the inhuman treatment that was done by the facility. Lest to conclude, that the fight between two nations has yet again started and repeating the history, we have already lost a lots of innocents from the hateful world of dominance.