Information is beginning to emerge about the smuggling of a highly addictive opioid pain medication into the Gaza Strip via bags of flour that are being distributed as humanitarian aid.

Reports have said that Oxycodone – the controversial drug behind the opioid epidemic in the US – is not only being smuggled in flour bags, but also crushed into powder and mixed into the flour itself. 

Gaza-based pharmacist Omar Hamad has cited the Anti-Drug Committee in the strip as saying that Israel has been smuggling the drug in “through bags of flour provided as aid.”

“It has also been revealed that the drug is not only hidden inside flour bags, but the flour itself appears to be mixed with it,” Hamad said on X on 26 June. 

“Many citizens have found these drugs, and I saw them with my own eyes in the flour sacks. There is also a doctor named Khalil Abu Nada who wrote a full report on this issue,” Hamad added. 

Dr Khalil Abu Nada wrote in the report mentioned by Hamad that “this may be one of the reasons behind the recent theft of flour trucks in southern Gaza (as of yesterday),” while going on to describe the addictive nature of Oxycodone and its risks and side effects, which include severe respiratory depression. 

Gaza journalist Abdullah Attar also reported that the opioid drug is being found inside flour bags.

Oxycodone and other heavy-duty opioid prescription medications like it were behind the deaths of hundreds of thousands of US citizens between 1999 and 2020. 

The reports come as Palestinians continue to suffer due to severe, Israeli-imposed restrictions on the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza – which resulted in the spread of famine across the strip.

A new, US-Israeli aid distribution mechanism called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) – which has been condemned by the UN and various international rights groups – is resulting in near-daily deaths. 

The plan has accelerated the Israeli army’s goal of displacing Gaza’s population southward and securing control over the strip. Palestinians show up at distribution sites overseen by US contractors and Israeli troops, and are shot dead and targeted with artillery while waiting for aid. 

Over 500 Palestinians have been killed at GHF sites since the initiative was launched late last month.