After two years, Gaza’s rogue croc is captured

It TOOK a web search, shark nets and two weeks of floating in a sewage pond, but Gaza policemen said yesterday that they had finally captured a crocodile that was terrifying residents.

The 5ft 9in crocodile fled his zoo enclosure two years ago and crawled about half a mile to a sewage pit near the Gaza Strip town of Umm al-Naser, said Lieutentant Colonel Samih al-Sultan, who led the hunt.

“He had a lot of spirit in him. He wanted to be free,” Col Sultan said, watching the crocodile in its new home with four others in a new zoo in Beit Lahiya.

Workers discovered the crocodile in the pit about two months ago, Col Sultan said. Lacking experience in crocodile hunting, he turned to the internet for advice. A team of police and fishermen spent two weeks sitting in a boat on the sewage pond. When that failed, they drained the pond and used shark nets to capture the croc.