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Palestinian Man Moves Most Animals from Rafah Zoo

A keeper cares for animals of the Rafah Zoo after their evacuation to a location in Khan Yunis in the Gaza strip on May 22, 2024. (Photo by Eyad BABA / AFP)
A keeper cares for animals of the Rafah Zoo after their evacuation to a location in Khan Yunis in the Gaza strip on May 22, 2024. (Photo by Eyad BABA / AFP)
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Palestinian Man Moves Most Animals from Rafah Zoo

A keeper cares for animals of the Rafah Zoo after their evacuation to a location in Khan Yunis in the Gaza strip on May 22, 2024. (Photo by Eyad BABA / AFP)
A keeper cares for animals of the Rafah Zoo after their evacuation to a location in Khan Yunis in the Gaza strip on May 22, 2024. (Photo by Eyad BABA / AFP)

In a cowshed in Gaza's Khan Yunis, zookeeper Fathi Ahmed Gomaa has created a temporary home for dozens of animals including lions and baboons, having fled with them from Israel's offensive in Rafah.

"We've moved all the animals we had, except for three big lions that remain (in Rafah)", he told Agence France Presse.

"I ran out of time and couldn't move them."

Ahmed abandoned his zoo in Rafah when Israel ordered the evacuation of parts of the southern Gazan city.

Before the offensive, the city on the border with Egypt had been spared a ground invasion and more than half of the Gaza Strip's population was sheltering there.

"I am appealing to the Israeli authorities: these animals have no connection to terrorism", Gomaa told AFP, saying he wanted their help in coordinating with aid agencies to rescue the lions left behind in Rafah.

He fears they won't survive long on their own.

"Of course, within a week or 10 days, if we don't get them out they will die because they'll be left with no food or water."

Gomaa said he had already lost several of his animals to the war. "Three lion cubs, five monkeys, a newborn monkey and nine squirrels," he said.

And while the squawking of parrots fills the air, many of Gomaa's other birds are no longer with him.

"I released some of the dogs, some of the hawks and eagles, some of the pigeons and some of the ornamental birds. I released a lot of them because we didn't have cages to transport them."

In the cowshed, Gomaa is making do with what he has, using improvised fencing to raise the heights of the pens so that their new inhabitants, spotted deer, can't leap out.

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NASA Downplays Role in Development of Titan Submersible that Imploded

(FILES) This undated image courtesy of OceanGate Expeditions, shows their Titan submersible beginning a descent. (Photo by Handout / OceanGate Expeditions / AFP)
(FILES) This undated image courtesy of OceanGate Expeditions, shows their Titan submersible beginning a descent. (Photo by Handout / OceanGate Expeditions / AFP)
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NASA Downplays Role in Development of Titan Submersible that Imploded

(FILES) This undated image courtesy of OceanGate Expeditions, shows their Titan submersible beginning a descent. (Photo by Handout / OceanGate Expeditions / AFP)
(FILES) This undated image courtesy of OceanGate Expeditions, shows their Titan submersible beginning a descent. (Photo by Handout / OceanGate Expeditions / AFP)

OceanGate co-founder Stockton Rush said the carbon fiber hull used in an experimental submersible that imploded en route to the wreckage of the Titanic was developed with help of NASA and aerospace manufacturers, but a NASA official testified Thursday that the space agency actually had little involvement at all.
OceanGate and NASA partnered in 2020 with NASA planning to play a role in building and testing the carbon fiber hull. But the COVID-19 pandemic prevented NASA from fulfilling its role, other than providing some consulting on an early mockup, not the ultimate carbon fiber hull that was used for people, said Justin Jackson, a materials engineer for NASA.
“We provided remote consultations throughout the build of their one third scale article, but we did not do any manufacturing or testing of their cylinders,” The Associated Press quoted Jackson as saying.
At one point, Jackson said NASA declined to allow its name to be invoked in a news release by OceanGate. “The language they were using was getting too close to us endorsing, so our folks had some heartburn with the endorsement level of it,” he told a Coast Guard panel that’s investigating the tragedy.
Rush was among the five people who died when the submersible imploded in June 2023. The design of the company's Titan submersible has been the source of scrutiny since the disaster.
The Coast Guard opened a public hearing earlier this month that is part of a high level investigation into the cause of the implosion. Some of the testimony has focused on the troubled nature of the company.
In addition to Jackson, Thursday's testimony was to include Mark Negley of Boeing Co.; John Winters of Coast Guard Sector Puget Sound; and Lt. Cmdr. Jonathan Duffett of the Coast Guard Office of Commercial Vessel Compliance.
Earlier in the hearing, former OceanGate operations director David Lochridge said he frequently clashed with Rush and felt the company was committed only to making money. “The whole idea behind the company was to make money,” Lochridge testified. “There was very little in the way of science.”
Lochridge and other previous witnesses painted a picture of a company that was impatient to get its unconventionally designed craft into the water. The accident set off a worldwide debate about the future of private undersea exploration.
The hearing is expected to run through Friday and include more witnesses.
The co-founder of the company told the Coast Guard panel Monday that he hoped a silver lining of the disaster is that it will inspire a renewed interest in exploration, including the deepest waters of the world’s oceans. Businessman Guillermo Sohnlein, who helped found OceanGate with Rush, ultimately left the company before the Titan disaster.
“This can’t be the end of deep ocean exploration. This can’t be the end of deep-diving submersibles and I don’t believe that it will be,” Sohnlein said.
Coast Guard officials noted at the start of the hearing that the submersible had not been independently reviewed, as is standard practice. That and Titan’s unusual design subjected it to scrutiny in the undersea exploration community.
OceanGate, based in Washington state, suspended its operations after the implosion. The company has no full-time employees currently, but has been represented by an attorney during the hearing.
During the submersible’s final dive on June 18, 2023, the crew lost contact after an exchange of texts about Titan’s depth and weight as it descended. The support ship Polar Prince then sent repeated messages asking if Titan could still see the ship on its onboard display.
One of the last messages from Titan’s crew to Polar Prince before the submersible imploded stated, “all good here,” according to a visual re-creation presented earlier in the hearing.
When the submersible was reported overdue, rescuers rushed ships, planes and other equipment to an area about 435 miles (700 kilometers) south of St. John’s, Newfoundland. Wreckage of the Titan was subsequently found on the ocean floor about 330 yards (300 meters) off the bow of the Titanic, Coast Guard officials said. No one on board survived.
OceanGate said it has been fully cooperating with the Coast Guard and NTSB investigations since they began. Titan had been making voyages to the Titanic wreckage site going back to 2021.