The civil administration killed more than 260 crocodiles at Petzaal farm in the West Bank, N12 reported on Monday.
Authorities claimed that the decision to kill the animals came after "a series of professional discussions following a real risk to the lives of residents."
The Ministry of Natural Resources and Parks stated, "Over the past 12 years, the Nature and Parks Authority teams at the Civil Administration's Nature Reserves Command have helped many times to capture crocodiles that escaped from the abandoned crocodile farm in Petzal.
“The river crocodile is a large, dangerous wild animal that can live up to 80 years in the wild. The escape and establishment of individuals in Israeli nature could cause great damage to nature on the one hand and great danger to humans on the other. In addition to the danger to Israeli nature, the situation at the crocodile farm was a terrible abuse of animals, which reached a state of cannibalism, terrible overcrowding, and unnatural behavior. In the absence of viable solutions for relocating such a large number of individuals and in accordance with the Civil Administration's decision, the Nature Reserves Command teams assisted and supervised the activities of repatriating the crocodile population from the farm."
Officials at the Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) reportedly said they tried to find a solution with the owner of the farm multiple times, but an agreement was never reached.
Gadi Bitan, the owner of the farm, told N12, "I didn't know what was being done. Civil Administration and Nature and Parks Authority personnel arrived at the site on Saturday, broke through the fences, and pumped the water out of the crocodile pond.”
Bitan said his employee arrived on Sunday at 6 a.m., and authorities forbade him from calling his boss to report what was happening.
“From morning until afternoon, they shot crocodile after crocodile, like that all day long, simply an execution,” Bitan said. “I saw that 200 crocodiles were reported, but that's a blatant lie; there were 800 on the farm.
“ I only found out about it at 6:00 PM after they returned my employee's cell phone. What happened there is worse than in third-world countries."
Bitan said he refused to stay silent on the issue, claiming authorities killed an animal that is meant to receive the highest level of protection.
"The crocodile is a protected animal at the highest level, and this will damage the image of the State of Israel in a way that will be impossible to repair,” he said. “Everyone who was involved, from senior officials to people on the ground, will be exposed to complaints that will be filed against them. Contrary to the claims that have been spread, the crocodiles were healthy, with a very high standard of living; they ate, and we provided them with everything they needed.
“I have been there for 40 years, and no human has ever been scratched or in danger, except, of course, those people who breached the fences and arrived there by bus. Such things cannot be avoided."
He added that he had experienced 10s of millions in damages and would pursue court action against the authorities for the mass killings.
Why is there a crocodile farm in the West Bank?
The site was opened in the 1990s as a tourist attraction, but it would later close as tourism dropped during the Second Intifada.
After the site stopped working as an attraction, the farm became a crocodile breeding facility where the creatures were bred for their meat and skin. However, a law was later put in place to ban the breeding of wild animals for commercial purposes, which led to the farm's shuttering.