AFP blames Gaza crocodile on - Israel!

Leave it to AFP to find an anti-Israel angle in this story:

Police in the Gaza Strip on Monday captured a crocodile that roamed the sewerage system of a town in the north of the enclave, the Palestinian territory's Hamas rulers said.

"The Palestinian police were able to use a boat to catch a crocodile that was hiding in the sewerage system in the town of Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip," the Hamas interior ministry said in a statement.

"The crocodile, which was 1.7 metres long, was captured alive after intense and difficult attempts following complaints from residents that their lives were in danger," it added.

An official in the area said the crocodile was transferred to the Gaza Zoo.

Rajab al-Naqah, the head of waste water treatment in Beit Lahiya, said the crocodile had escaped two years ago, when it was still small, from a nearby zoo to take up residence in the facility, where it threatened people.

Witnesses said the crocodile had attacked cattle that grazed nearby.

Gaza's water sewerage system has deteriorated over the years, notably because of the Israeli blockade on the Palestinian territory and its devastating 22-day war on militant rocket fire launched in December 2008.

So the crocodile was able to slither around Gaza's sewers because of Israel's blockade?

Not only that, but Israel has allowed plenty of materials for Gaza sewage and waste treatment programs to be transferred to Gaza since Cast Lead, something AFP could have found out quite easily if they just made a phone call.

That last gratuitous paragraph shows that AFP simply cannot resist blaming Israel for literally everything bad that happens in the territories.

Even escaped crocodiles.

By the way, even Al Jazeera couldn't find an anti-Israel angle to the Gaza crocodile story.

Surprisingly, none of the Arab media has found out yet that the croc was a Mossad agent.

(h/t Gidon Shaviv)