Gaza Strip (TIP): Gaza’s Government Media Office (GMO) on Friday confirmed reports regarding narcotic pills of the type “Oxycodone” being found in flour bags distributed as aid to starving Palestinians by the US-backed and Israeli military-operated Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). Expressing its “deep concern and condemnation” over the discovery of narcotic pills inside flour bags, the Media Office further raised fears regarding the possibility of such substances being ground into the flour, which the Palestinians have consumed.
“We have so far documented four testimonies from citizens who found these pills inside flour bags. More serious is the possibility that some of these narcotic substances were deliberately ground or dissolved in the flour itself, which raises the scope of the crime and transforms it into a serious attack directly targeting public health,” said the statement published by the Media Office on Telegram.
“We hold the Israeli occupation fully responsible for this heinous crime of spreading addiction and destroying the Palestinian social fabric from within, as part of a systematic policy that constitutes an extension of the genocide it is waging against our Palestinian people,” it added.
“The Israeli occupation’s use of drugs as a soft weapon in a dirty war against civilians, and its exploitation of the blockade to smuggle these substances as ‘aid and assistance’, constitute a war crime and a grave violation of international humanitarian law,” the statement said.
Meanwhile, at least 62 Palestinians were killed by Israel on Friday including at least 10 who were shot dead while waiting to receive aid at the distribution sites of the GHF in southern Gaza.
The GHF started operations in May this year, after Israel announced it would partially lift a three-month-long blockade of humanitarian assistance and allow limited aid inside the war-ravaged territory, where the UN has flagged a famine-like situation.
Rights groups and the UN have refused to cooperate with the GHF, slamming it as a “death trap” for Palestinians and accusing it of aiding Israel in its genocidal war on Gaza.
According to Gaza’s health ministry, Israel has killed more than 549 Palestinians at aid distribution sites since the GHF began operations last month.
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, called the GHF an “abomination” that has put Palestinians’ lives at risk, while a spokesman for the UN human rights office, Thameen Al-Kheetan, condemned the “weaponisation of food” in the territory. (Agencies)