'Zebras' reach Gaza's zoo
Updated on 08 October 2009
Palestinian children in Gaza were delighted when confronted with two new zebras at their zoo - in reality donkeys painted with black stripes.
The zoo says they painted stripes onto the donkey so the children would feel they had seen a new animal, as it was too difficult and expensive to smuggle a real zebra in through Gaza's tunnels.
Nidal Barghouthi, whose father owns the Marah Land zoo, said the two female donkeys were striped using masking tape and women's hair dye applied with a paint-brush.
"We have made a striped donkey for two reasons. The first reason so that the children would see a striped donkey and think zebra and then they might feel like they saw a new animal today.
"The second reason is because it is difficult to get a striped donkey because it is very expensive and all the animals we get we smuggle them inside. It is difficult to get a wild donkey smuggled in and they are very expensive to bring," Barghouthi explains.
A real zebra would be too expensive to bring into Israel-blockaded Gaza via the smuggling tunnels under the border with Egypt, said owner Mohammed Bargouthi. Saying it would cost $40,000.
Gaza Palestinians are impoverished by their isolation under an Israeli embargo against its Islamist Hamas rulers who refuse to give up armed resistance against the Jewish state.
