Statement on Allegations of Drug-Laced Flour Bags Distributed by Israel in Gaza

The Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention and Human Security is deeply horrified by reports that flour bags distributed to Palestinians under the joint Israeli-American “Gaza Humanitarian Foundation” (GHF) have allegedly been laced with narcotic substances.

According to testimonies collected by the Gaza Media Office and reported by multiple news outlets, the white pills hidden inside flour bags have been identified as oxycodone. This opioid can cause severe addiction, a decrease in heart rate, respiratory depression, fetal growth abnormalities, preterm delivery, and other life-threatening conditions. Its addictiveness has made it the central pharmacological agent of the ongoing opioid epidemic in the US, which has resulted in over 700,000 documented deaths.

These flour bags are one of the few remaining food sources permitted into Gaza, a region that is already facing mass starvation and catastrophic infrastructure collapse, resulting from an ongoing campaign of extermination. If verified, the deliberate placement of addictive substances in basic food staples would constitute yet another grotesque form of psychological and chemical warfare and a flagrant violation of international law. Drs. Brendan Ciarán Browne and Emma Keelan have called it a form of bioterrorism.

Disturbingly, these allegations come alongside mounting reports that Israel has turned the aid distribution sites into what have been described as “death traps” by deliberately targeting civilians looking to secure a meal for their starving families. This overall situation highlights the profound injustice of allowing perpetrators of mass atrocities to control the distribution of humanitarian aid to the very populations whose lives they seek to destroy.

The use of illicit drug trafficking, disguised as humanitarian aid, reflects the continuous legacy of the settler-colonial occupation that Israel has enforced in Palestine. The use of opiates as weapons in colonial wars is not new. The British used opium to undermine Imperial China in the nineteenth century, for example. In Israel, it has been a consistent imperial practice and dates back to as early as the wide-ranging military offensive against the Gaza Strip known as ‘Operation Cast Lead’ in 2009, where Israel flooded Gaza with Tramadol, as highlighted by the Anti-Drug Task Force. The supply of opioids, including oxycodone, is a calculated attempt to induce addiction and overdose, as well as psychologically destabilize and ‘numb’ a population already suffering from widespread destruction and siege.

The Lemkin Institute urgently calls on the United Nations and international humanitarian organizations to initiate an immediate and independent investigation into these disturbing allegations. Humanitarian aid must be delivered in a transparent, safe, and neutral manner, rather than being weaponized to further a genocidal campaign.