Jamal Amwasi of Ramallah, a 35-year-old Palestinian
civil servant, is the owner of more than a dozen snakes, including several
large pythons, all of which live in a shed a few metres from his home in the
occupied West Bank.
"These snakes have become part of the family. Every morning and every
night I check up on them and feed them," he said.
As a boy, Mr Amwasi would hunt birds and gazelles in the surrounding hills, a
pastime that eventually led him to snakes.
In addition to collecting local snakes, he has imported the Burmese pythons
from a trader in Israel. He knows all the different species by their Hebrew
names.
Some 40 species of snake inhabit Israel and the West Bank and around 10 of
them are venomous, including the Sahara horned viper, the Palestinian viper,
the saw-scaled viper and the long, black burrowing asp.
Mr Amwasi used to own around 20 venomous snakes but got rid of them for fear
that they might bite one of his children or a neighbour. He says he turned
them loose in a remote area far from the city.
He has taught himself how to treat various bites, however, and once helped
doctors administer an antivenom to a 10-year-old boy who had been bitten by
a snake in a village near Ramallah.
"I got a call from a friend who was visiting a patient at the hospital,
and he said there was a critical case, a child the doctors said had been
bitten by a snake." He raced to the hospital and asked the boy where he
was from.
"I know where the snakes are in this area, so I knew the kind of
poisonous snake that was in that village, as well as the antivenom," he
says. Within three days, the child recovered fully.
Now he regularly gets calls from people asking him to remove troublesome
snakes. If they are venomous he kills them. If not, he keeps them.
At home, his children enjoy the pet pythons. Ibrahim, 13, is responsible for
feeding the three-metre snakes when his father is away.
"I'm not afraid of them at all," he says proudly.
Two-year-old Natalie used to be afraid, but now she kisses them and rides on
their backs as they slither down the road in front of her house.
"I'm thinking about making her a saddle,' Mr Amwasi said, as neighbours
and passers-by stop and stare.
He raises chickens, ducks and rabbits in order to ensure a constant food
supply for his pets, and says he fed a lamb to one of the pythons two weeks
ago.
The lamb, he admits, was hardly bigger than Natalie, but he brushes aside
concerns about her safety.
