In today’s latest installment of weird news around the world: Hamas, the Palestinian militant group, claims that it has seized a dolphin that was spying for Israel off the coast of Gaza.
According to the report published in the Palestinian newspaper Al-Quds, the dolphin was found diving through the waves and practicing excellent echolocation. It was, in fact, a dolphin, whose “suspicious movements” had drawn the attention of naval commandos.
The report claims that Hamas frogmen had managed to seize the dolphin and take it to the shore, and that the dolphin had been equipped with a remote control monitoring device and a camera. The captured device can allegedly fire small arrows that could kill or seriously wound anyone who dove deep into the sea.
This might sound too outlandish to be true, but in reality, the dolphin joins a long list of animals allegedly pressed into service by Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency, according to a number of Arab governments.
In one such example, vultures were detained in both Saudi Arabia and Sudan on suspicion of espionage. Israel said the birds were tagged with GPS chips and Hebrew leg bracelets as part of a university program to track their migration.
A fisherman in Egypt meanwhile, caught a stork two years ago when he noticed a suspicious metal object strapped to its back and suspected it was a spy. In 2013, Egyptian police nabbed a bird outside of Cairo with microfilm supposedly tied to its leg. The bird was ultimately cleared of all charges and released.
That’s not all though. In 2010, Mohamed Abdel Fadil Shousha, the governor of South Sinai, accused Mossad of using remote-control sharks to attack tourists and jeopardise the country.
It surely is true that Israel’s Mossad espionage is legendary, with Hollywood-worthy covert operations, including assassinations, playing out across the region. That the bionic spy animal plots have been refuted with regularity—the animals are being monitored by conservationists tracking their migratory patterns—has done little to extinguish the fires of intrigue through the Middle East.
Besides, dolphins have been used by various militaries in the past, including those of the United States and the Soviet Union, and now Russia. Dolphins are among the smartest members of the animal kingdom and the US military has used them as naval minesweepers in the past. But the U.S. Navy has said that it only uses the animals for missions such as detecting mines and rescuing swimmers – and not for attacking people or carrying weapons.
Just wait till Hamas find out about Seal Team Six.
Images used for illustration purposes only
Credit: Wikipedia Commons
