An outspoken Israeli minister has proposed surrounding prisons holding Palestinians with deadly crocodiles. Far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir is understood to want to make the idea a reality using the fearsome reptiles to populate a body of water encircling any facility holding Palestinian inmates. 

The plan to create an alligator-guarded island for prisoners echoes the use of the famous Alcatraz Island prison in the waters off San Francisco, where the depths are patrolled by wild great white sharks. According to Israeli media, the crocodiles for the new prison would be specially brought in and kept in water within an outer fence surrounding the whole prison.

The detention facility would be constructed in Hamat Gader, near Israel’s eastern border with Jordan.

According to Channel 13, Mr Ben Gvir raised his plan during a security meeting with Israel Prison Service (IPS) Deputy Commissioner Gondar Hatem Azzam and Lieutenant Colonel Kobi Yaakovi last week. 

It’s reported that the suggestion, which Mr Ben Gvir said would help prevent escape attempts, was met with some ridicule from several officers present at the meeting. 

However, the IPS is said to have begun examining the possibility of establishing such a prison, with Hamat Gader identified as a possible location. 

The region is home to resorts and natural hot springs south of the Sea of Galilee. It is also the site of an existing crocodile farm. The sulphur spas in Hamat Gader are said to have restorative health properties which some believe may have a therapeutic effect on skin diseases, asthma, rheumatism and wrist pain.

It’s not the first time the idea of using crocodiles to guard inmates has been floated. In 2015, Indonesian authorities mooted using dangerous animals to guard prisons holding death-row drug convicts. Budi Waseso, the head of Indonesia’s anti-drugs agency, said at the time crocodiles made better guards, because they could not be bribed.

And in Brazil’s southern state of Santa Catarina, an unusual animal alarm system has been deployed in the shape of flocks of geese. The honking birds, dubbed “geese agents”, patrol an area of green space between an inner fence and an outer wall at a prison, alerting guards to any activity with their calls.

“We have electronic surveillance, in-person surveillance … and finally the surveillance of the geese, which replaced the dogs,” said prison director Marcos Roberto de Souza