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Opioid pills discovered in US-backed food aid, Gaza authorities say (www.middleeasteye.net)
submitted 2 weeks ago by disguy_ovahea@lemmy.world to c/worldnews@lemmy.ml
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The Gaza government media office on Friday condemned the discovery of oxycodone pills reportedly discovered in flour bags distributed by “American-Israeli” aid centres.

“We have so far documented four testimonies from citizens who found these pills inside the flour bags,” it said in a statement, warning of the “possibility that some of these narcotic substances were deliberately ground or dissolved in the flour itself”.

Oxycodone is an opioid meant to treat severe and long-term pain, often prescribed to cancer patients.

The drug is highly addictive and can have life-threatening effects, including breathing complications and hallucinations.

The media office’s statement comes after several social media posts shared images of pills purportedly discovered in flour bags in Gaza.

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[–] simplejack@lemmy.world 3 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Occam's razor.

There is a tremendously strong need to get painkillers into Gaza. And smuggler’s drones have been getting shot down. Aid is one of the few channels in. I would expect that someone is going to try to leverage that.

There are also addicts that are trying to have stuff smuggled in. Prime example of this is something as simple as cigarettes. There are quite a few articles about Israel stopping and intercepting people smuggling in cigarettes.

But poisoning or getting random people hooked on opioids? It was loose pills, and a more expensive opiate. If this was a scheme to poison or hook people, it’s a complex and dumb one. If you know anything about opiates, you know there are far better and cheaper to hook or kill people if that’s your goal.

[–] blimthepixie@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

That makes sense, I think I misinterpreted the second paragraph.

Because of the packs of pills being found, they were worried about the flour being contaminated?

[–] Ghostalmedia@lemmy.world 2 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Yeah, they were worried about flour being contaminated, and they implied that US or Israeli actors may have also crushed up oxy into the flour. But they didn’t actually test the flour to see if someone actually did that. They just threw out a hypothetical on social media, and people piled on without evidence to back that up.

And they kind of ignored the fact that Israel has created desperate conditions that smugglers are capitalizing on, and there is a lot of reporting about the smuggling and medical shortages.