A Rare Visitor Finds a Home With Gazans

Its first home was a small pool in the Bissan resort, near the village of Aum al-Nasser; its neighbors were a community of Bedouins living in shacks.

Perhaps yearning for the wild, the reptile fled along with two other crocodiles, also tunnel entrants. The two others were quickly found nearby.

News of the carnivorous fugitive inspired a mix of fear and curiosity among local Gazans. The crocodile lived mainly on birds, ducks and smaller reptiles that populate near sewage ponds. Clearly a crocodile of some taste, it selected the pond with the lowest levels of pollution, where the sewage is mixed with regular water, according to a civil defense worker.

Gaza’s Agriculture Ministry at first denied reports that there was a crocodile lurking in the pool. But Abed Abu Guinas, who lives in Aum al-Nasser, said residents began to suspect that the crocodile was in one of the seven sewage pools after two goats were badly bitten while grazing near the ponds about a month ago and died. The residents told the police, who monitored the area and occasionally shot at the crocodile.

Then, a police spokesman, Ayman al-Batniji, said civil defense crews decided to try to catch the animal alive.

So officials of Hamas, which administers Gaza, recruited a group of local fishermen, including Jehad al-Sultan, 49. “We spent a week paddling through shallow sewage water to catch him,” Mr. Sultan said, adding that the crocodile managed twice to break free of the fishing nets his would-be captors were using, which he said were not made for large creatures. On the third try, using heftier nets intended for catching guitarfish, they were successful.

Mr. Sultan said he held the crocodile tightly — very tightly — by its closed jaw until his fellow fishermen arrived to help.

On Tuesday afternoon, the police brought the crocodile, now caged, to a small zoo in northern Gaza. Once released from the cage, it immediately made its way to a familiar environment, a small pond with shallow water.