Animals & animal rescuers caught in the Hamas/Israel crossfire

Even if the shooting ends by Ramadan,  a ceasefire will not bring peace for animals

RAFAH,  Gaza;  RAMAT GAN, Israel–– “Sergeant major Adi Eldor,  21,  a combat soldier in Maglan commando,  was killed last night by anti-tank missiles,  alongside his teammate,  sergeant major Alon Kleinman,  also 21,”  the Israeli animal charity Let The Animals Live announced on February 12,  2024.

Let The Animals Live recalled how Eldor recently rescued four puppies,  finding homes for three of them,  while Let The Animals Live took in one.

Eldor’s last social media posting,  Let The Animals Live said,  was seeking homes for the puppies.

Rafah firefight

Eldor and Kleinman were among the Israeli casualties during the rescue of two kibbutz farmers from Hamas captivity in Rafah,  southern Gaza.

Abducted from Kibbutz Nir Yitzhak by Hamas raiders on October 7,  2023,  Fernando Simon Marman,  60,  and Louis Har, 70,  both also citizens of Argentina,  were held for four months in an apartment house otherwise filled and surrounded by Gazan civilians,  who served as human shields for the Hamas jailers.

Marman and Har were freed at cost of at least 67 Palestinian lives,  both Hamas soldiers and civilians,  but––as the deaths of Eldor and Kleinman demonstrated––the firefight was hardly one-sided.

Why were three sheep shot?

External indications are that the Israeli war against Hamas may be close to an end,  with most of the remaining Hamas forces apparently bottled up in tunnels under civilian infrastructure in Rafah.  The Rafah region is also temporary home to as many as 1.5 million of the Gaza human population of about 2.1 million.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has hoped that the Rafah fighting will be ended before Ramadan,  the Islamic “holy month,”  starts on March 11,  2024.

Among the animal casualties of the war were three sheep believed to have been held in anticipation of Eid al-Fitr,  the sacrificial feast that ends Ramadan,  typically marked in Gaza by curbside mass amateur slaughter.

Arab Israeli lawmaker Ahmed Tibi on February 6,  2024 shared on X/Twitter a brief video clip showing the sheep wandering out of a damaged building in Bani Suheila,  near Khan Yunis in central Gaza,  and being shot,  allegedly by the Israeli Defense Force snipers whose video the clip was said to be.

Why the sheep were shot was unclear.  Also unclear was whether the sheep were in fact shot by Israeli troops.

Dogs attacking calves

Very few farmed animals on either side of the Gaza wall are believed to have survived the Gaza fighting.  Thousands of animals on kibbutz farms along the Israeli side,  mostly chickens,  were massacred on October 7,  2023 by barn-burning Hamas invaders.

While some kibbutz dairy farms have remained in operation,  the Tel Aviv newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth,  published in Hebrew since 1939,  in early February 2024 reported that stray dogs,  whom “the war has turned into feral animals,  have recently preyed on at least six calves” in Kibbutz Nahal Oz.

“Kibbutz officials have now established a feeding station for the dogs,  who are captured and handed over to veterinarians.  Additional feeding stations will be established in the kibbutz to protect the calves and the residents from the hungry dogs of Gaza,”  updated the pro-Palestinian periodical Middle East Monitor.

Donkeys slaughtered & eaten

On the Gaza side,  Deir al-Balah farmer Bassem Younis Abu Zayed told Jerusalem BBC News correspondent Lucy Williamson,  “It looks like the aftermath of an earthquake.  The destruction is vast,  covering neighboring buildings and farm animals,”  most of whom have been killed and eaten.

Repeatedly warned to evacuate southward as the Israeli Defense Force advanced from the north,  Gazan refugees are now advised to head back north,  through miles of rubble,  mostly without transportation,  since many of the donkeys who pulled carts of people and their possessions south in the early weeks of the war have now also been slaughtered and eaten.

Accounts of donkeys being killed for food surfaced as early as December 14,  2023.  Feed grain originally brought to Gaza before the war for donkeys,  ground into coarse flour,  has subsequently become the staple food of most Gazans,  with supplies now nearly exhausted.

Apparent Hamas desperation

Already suffering from severe food scarcity,  many Gazan refugees fear that moving farther away from relief convoys sporadically entering through the Rafah gate from Egypt will ensure starvation.

There is also the constant risk for those moving back north of both accidental attack from Israeli troops and aircraft,  still trying to suppress pockets of Hamas activity in Khan Younis and Gaza City,  and deliberate attack by Hamas fighters trying to discourage any retreat by their human shields.

Conspicuously,  Hamas has never made any of its extensive tunnel system––miles of it now exposed by the Israeli Defense Force and shown to global media––accessible to civilians as bomb shelters and as a bomb-proof route to safety.

Neither has Hamas shared stockpiled food supplies with Gazan civilians,  though recent Hamas hijacking of food deliveries brought into Gaza by the United Nations Relief & Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East [UNRWA] suggests that Hamas fighters too are often hungry.

Apparent Hamas desperation has become especially evident since revelations of the extent of UNRWA infiltration by Hamas,  and active collaboration with Hamas on October 7,  2023, prompted the U.S. and many European nations to cut off funding to UNRWA.

Sulala Animal Rescue caught in the middle

Sulala Animal Rescue,  the only incorporated animal charity in Gaza,  remains literally caught in the middle,  in temporary quarters between Gaza City and Khan Younis.

Posting video of founder Saeed Al Err “Visiting the shelter for the displaced dogs and feeding them beans,”  Belgian volunteer Annelies Keuleers said on February 12,  2024,  “I realize, for those of you who really love cats,  that we haven’t posted videos yet of the cats being fed.  You can rest assured that they are being fed.  Saeed and family and the animals are in the central area,  not in Rafah.  So the attacks last night probably didn’t harm them,  but I am still waiting for news.”

“We have already lost everything,  but at least the animals are still with me,”  Saeed Al Err told ABC News correspondent Camilla Alcini on February 10,  2024.

Out of food & help stalled

“Al Err said he and his family,  including the animals he is currently able to care for,  have relocated three times since October 7,  2023,”  Alcini reported.

“More than 30 dogs––20 of whom the the organization says are disabled––as well as 120 cats and four donkeys are currently in Al Err’s care,  he said.

“Al Err said his rescue organization completely ran out of animal food at the beginning of January,”  a month after People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals founder Ingrid Newkirk on November 30,  2023 urged United Nations secretary-general António Guterres to add “essential supplies for animals in desperate need” to UNRWA relief convoys,  to no avail.

Sulala Animal Rescue has not “received animal food supplies since October 9,  2023,”  Alcini continued,  detailing a crisis described almost daily by Keuleers and frequently updated by ANIMALS 24-7.

UNRWA is not talking

“On New Year’s Eve,”  recounted Alcini,  “a truck containing two tons of pet food organized for Sulala by the Australian animal protection organization Animals Australia made it to the Egyptian-controlled Rafah border crossing,  according to Keuleers,”  confirmed by Animals Australia.

Six weeks later the truck,  reportedly cleared for entry into Gaza by Israeli inspectors,  remains stalled

“ABC News reached out to UNRWA about the truck Keuleers says they are waiting on, but the request for comment was not immediately returned,”  Alcini said.

“Al Err said his eight children all support his mission,”  Alcini finished.  “While the older ones––Celine,  Sa’ed,  Mubarak and Mohammad––help him with the fieldwork,  he said,  the younger ones are in charge of the cats.  He said his youngest,  6-year-old Diana,  used to join him on ‘feeding tours’ for stray animals when the organization still had food.

“They feed them, clean after them and especially, they play with them,”  Al Err told Alcini.

Help for zoo animals also stalled

Also stuck outside Gaza,  unable to enter to rescue starving animals from three privately operated mini-zoos,  is Egyptian veterinarian Amir Khalil of the Austrian international animal charity Vier Pfoten,  known in English as Four Paws.

“I think it is the wrong time to see whom to save and whom not to save.  And I think if I’m able to help one creature,  it’s enough,”  Khalil told Jorge Martinez of the National Public Radio program Morning Edition on January 17,  2024.

Khalil has already evacuated animals from substandard private zoos in Gaza several times,  even winning promises from the owners that they will not reopen,  but they keep reopening anyway.

“So we speak about lions.  We speak about hyenas.  We hear about crocodiles there,  and three baboons who escaped from a zoo in Gaza,”  Khalil said.

“They might attack your car”

Rescuing them “needs a lot of intelligence work before,  especially on the road,”  Khalil explained.  “If you enter under ‘humanitarian aid,’  a lot of people will think you have food for humans.  They might attack your car.  You need to be aware about the road to be safe from snipers. You have to be aware about having enough food with you for the animals,  because you don’t know how long it will take.  Even a short distance might take hours sometimes [to get past a] checkpoint or control. You need to be prepared for the worst scenario all the time.”

Once Khalil enters Gaza,  he hopes to relay whatever animals he is able to take through Egypt to a sanctuary run with Vier Pfoten help by the Princess Alia Foundation in Jordan.

Khalil told Martinez that,  “The majority of the animals were smuggled [into Gaza] six kilometers through tunnels under the ground.”

Historically,  Khalil said,  “The majority of the [zoo] animals were kept in poor condition due to the political situation there and the economic situation,”  but he hoped that better zoos might be built in Gaza after the fighting ends.

“The people there deserve to see wildlife,  but kept under international standards,”  Khalil said.

Mia Leimberg & Bella

Both Naama Barak of Israel 21c, published from San Francisco,  and South African journalist Nurah Tape of The Palestine Chronicle,  published from Mount Lake Terrace,  Washington,  mused recently about Mia Leimberg,  “a 17-year-old from Jerusalem,  who on October 7,  2023 was kidnapped by Hamas terrorists from the southern community of Kibbutz Nir Yitzhak while she was visiting family,”  Barak recounted.

“They dragged her to the Gaza Strip with other family members and,  to Hamas’ surprise,  her pet dog,  Bella.

“The terrorists discovered that Mia was clutching Bella only once inside the Gaza Strip,  and Mia says that having Bella helped her navigate captivity.

“After almost two months,  Mia was freed on November 28,  2023 together with her mother and aunt, while her uncle and her aunt’s partner remain hostage in Gaza,”  Barak wrote.

Opined Tape,  “Leimberg cut an interesting figure as she was seen flanked by masked Hamas fighters whilst clutching her pet dog,  Bella,  when handed over for release in November.

“Just as Bella was ‘moral support’ for her during her captivity,  so too are the animals,  caught up in this conflict,  for the many children trying to survive” in Gaza.

October 7,  2023 victims still being identified

            Meanwhile,  victims of the October 7,  2023 attacks continue to be identified and their obituaries published.

“Roi Popplewell,  53,  was shot and killed by Hamas terrorists behind his Kibbutz Nirim home on October 7,  2023,”  The Jerusalem Times recalled .  Affectionately called “Pepe” by close friends, Popplewell was “a real kibbutznik” and a dedicated farmer who had a special connection with animals,”  especially dogs and horses.

“’There was always a puppy or five who adopted Pepe,’ his friend Yochai Bashan wrote on Facebook after the funeral.  Pepe would understand their hearts and their needs without speaking,”  the Jerusalem Times said.

Also recently memorialized was,  “Avi Mor,  59, murdered by Hamas terrorists in his home in Kibbutz Be’eri on October 7,  2023.  Mor,  the son of two Holocaust survivors,  was a huge lover of animals, looking after a large number of cats and dogs over the years.”

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