Alarm in Gaza over drugs found in flour sacks belonging to the Trump-Netanyahu foundation

BarcelonaJust when it seemed that the horrors in Gaza could no longer be overcome, a gruesome discovery has added a new cause for anguish to the indiscriminate bombing and the blockade of humanitarian aid, which has caused the worst hunger crisis in the world, according to the UN and NGOs present in the Strip. At the end of June, the Hamas government warned that oxycodone pills, a powerful opium-based narcotic, had been found mixed in the sacks of flour distributed by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). It is the controversial aid distribution system established in May by the United States and Israel to bypass UN mechanisms, where at least 798 Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire and another 5,000 were injured while collecting food, the United Nations Human Rights Office warned this Friday. At least 39 Palestinians have disappeared at these locations and no news has been received.

The Hamas government press office says it has documented four cases of Palestinians who have found the pills inside sacks of flour, and has accused Israel of trying to "destroy the social fabric from within." ARA was able to speak with one of them, Omar Hamad, a pharmacist. "I opened the sack of flour and found them inside, without any packaging. I took them and was going to take them to the laboratory for analysis, but then I saw a report on Facebook by Dr. Jalil Abu Nada, who had already tested them at the Ministry of Health and confirmed that they were oxycodone," he explains in a telephone conversation. The pharmacist hadn't personally gone to the GHF distribution point, but had bought the bag from someone else who had risked their life to collect the food. The pills, therefore, could also have been put in the bag after distribution.

Oxycodone is an opiate prescribed to treat chronic pain, such as in cancer patients. It is a highly addictive substance, with side effects such as nausea, vomiting, hallucinations, dizziness, and respiratory failure. Ingested with flour in unknown quantities, it can cause birth defects in pregnant women and severe respiratory difficulties in the elderly.

The pharmacist is fully aware of the danger, but says he cannot stop his family from eating the flour from the bag, without knowing whether more crushed drugs might be mixed in. "We don't have the luxury of being able to take samples and analyze them, but many people in the family have fallen ill: that doesn't prove they mixed the drug with the flour, but it makes it more likely," he warns. "We have nothing else to eat: we simply have no alternative." Hamad has no doubt that whoever put the drugs in the flour's goal is "to make people fight each other, to create a lot of conflict, and thus kill us one after another. All the pressure they're putting us under is bringing out the worst in us."

GHF has responded to the controversy by denying all accusations as a viral social media campaign orchestrated by Hamas, and asserting that the sacks of flour are purchased from commercial companies and distributed sealed. When questioned by journalists, the UN Secretary-General's spokesperson said it was impossible to verify what was happening with these drugs and again called on Israel to allow the international press access to Gaza for more accurate information.

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This is not the first time that Hamas has accused Israel of smuggling drugs among Palestinians in Gaza or the West Bank to domesticate its population. The then head of the anti-drug force, Jamil Al Dahshan, said that Israel was behind this smuggling. entered the Strip. In the West Bank refugee camps, too, there has been a serious public health problem for years due to the use of tramadol among young people. -BK_SLT_LNA~ individuals is a desperate attempt by a failed occupation army to suppress the Palestinian resistance, a resistance they have been unable to defeat militarily for the past 21 months." And he recalls that "these tactics are as old as the State of Israel itself, which in 1948 already poisoned Palestinian water wells with Kus distribution

Oxycodone pills are just the latest in a series of scandals surrounding GHF distribution points. Israeli soldiers revealed to the newspaper Haaretz how they systematically received orders to shoot Palestinians without any reason who were searching for food in the midst of the worst hunger crisis the Strip has ever suffered, caused by the relentless blockade imposed by Israel on the entry of humanitarian aid into the Strip.

Americans explained to the AP that their colleagues also fired live ammunition at the Palestinians who were searching for food at these distribution sites, which have become known as the Gaza Hunger Games. distribution against a group of Palestinians who were leaving after collecting the food.