Frankly Speaking: Will the Assad regime kick its drug habits?

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Updated 25 June 2023
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Frankly Speaking: Will the Assad regime kick its drug habits?

Frankly Speaking: Will the Assad regime kick its drug habits?
  • On International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking, expert doubts Syria’s intention to change despite Arab League readmission
  • Caroline Rose of New Lines Institute says killing of kingpin Al-Ramthan was significant for curtailing trafficking, not production
  • Arab News documentary probes Captagon trade sources, shines light on Kingdom’s battle against drug smuggling and consumption

DUBAI: As the world marks the International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking, leading Captagon trade researcher Caroline Rose says she is doubtful the Bashar Assad regime would relinquish its lucrative drug business income, despite apparent support and commitments to Arab countries during the Jeddah Arab League Summit last month.

Appearing on Frankly Speaking, Arab News’ current affairs talk show, the director of New Lines Institute pointed out that not only does Captagon production in Syria provide the regime with “a large source of revenue,” but “it also upholds a very delicate system of power in patronage inside of regime-held areas that the Assad regime has relied on throughout the civil war.”

She explained that many of the “big players” deeply involved in the Captagon trade, “such as Maher Assad,” are “relatives of Bashar Assad himself, or members of Syria’s very deep and very influential security apparatus,” and “they all have a role to play in continuing and keeping up the Syrian regime’s hold on power and territorial control across the country.

Asked about the impact of the Saudi-Jordanian-Egyptian airstrike that killed Captagon kingpin Merhi Al-Ramthan inside Syria on May 8, Rose replied that although Al-Ramthan was an “influential trafficker and smuggler in the south (of Syria),” he was not a key actor in production, making him a “smaller fish … that the regime could give up as a show of goodwill.”

She noted that “while Al-Ramthan was given up, a number of other key individuals were not,” meaning the move was “an opportunity for the Syrian regime to … show it was genuine about cracking down on the Captagon trade.”




Speaking to Jensen, Rose pointed out that Captagon is popular among different demographics in the Gulf. (AN Photo)

The joint airstrike came a week after Syria committed to assisting in ending drug trafficking along its borders with Jordan and Iraq. The foreign ministers of Syria, Egypt, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Jordan met in Amman in early May and discussed developing a roadmap to reach a political settlement for the 12-year war.

Elaborating on the significance of Al-Ramthan’s killing, Rose pointed out that in southern Syria, which “has grown in importance in the Captagon trade,” the deceased kingpin “operated a very large network of traffickers that would be enlisted and recruited — many of them were local tribes or traffickers that had been participating in illicit trades for decades.”

She added that Al-Ramthan “was responsible for trying to export the Captagon trade out of Syria,” emphasizing that traffickers in south Syria attempted to find new routes “that could serve as a pathway to Arab Gulf destination markets.”

Rose believes Al-Ramthan’s killing has “served a message to a number of traffickers” that “if you are not in close, close coordination with the Syrian regime, then you have a target on your back.”

For this reason, she believes the world is braced for “much more creative and sophisticated ways of smuggling and Captagon production as a result,” but not necessarily comparable to the opioid epidemic, which “coincided with a huge uptick in deaths and fatality,” particularly in the US.

With Captagon, “we have not necessarily seen the fatality rate that we have seen with the opioid epidemic, so I do not want to put that on the same plane,” she said.

In 2017, the US Department of Health and Human Services declared the opioid crisis a public health emergency. It was reported that from 1999 to 2019, there were more than 760,000 deaths due to overdoses, and in 2020, opioids were involved in approximately 75 percent of all overdose fatalities.

However, citing the diverse and broad Captagon smuggling capacity, Rose added that “in terms of the sophisticated and advanced smuggling techniques, I think that Captagon is definitely competitive in that aspect.”

She added: “We have seen fruit and vegetables used (and) machinery. We have seen designer bags, school desks, sometimes even drone technology used to smuggle Captagon — and this counts for not only Captagon shipments that are being sent to maritime ports, but also Captagon that is being seized along overland border crossings as well.

“These smugglers are closely monitoring the different shifts in trade, but also interdiction capacity amongst law-enforcement entities, and they are very much calculating new ways that they can traffic Captagon to reach new destination markets and carve out new transit markets in the process.”




Rose during her Frankly Speaking interview said become extremely popular primarily due to its “variety of different uses.” (AN Photo)

Last month, the Biden administration said it would release a congressional-approved strategy to curb the flow of Captagon from Syria. This has prompted the question of why it took the US almost a decade to act when Syria’s narco-trade began after the war erupted in 2011.

Rose said that the strategy to stem Syria’s Captagon trade was “originally an NDAA (National Defense Authorization Act) amendment in the previous year,” and “it took two years to get it passed.”

She added that “the recognition (of) Captagon as an issue and as a crisis in the region … took quite a while. It took a while to also compound and compile evidence of the regime’s participation in the trade, and for the United States to really wake up to the fact that this was not necessarily just any illicit economy that was in the region, but it was something that had real security and geopolitical implications.

“I think also … just typical bureaucracy as well. It takes very, very long, especially in the US legislative system, to get initiatives like these passed.”

On the prevalence of Captagon in the Middle East and its expanding global reach, Rose said the drug, which is sold at relatively low prices, has become extremely popular primarily due to its “variety of different uses” — it can suppress trauma, improve productivity, and induce a euphoric feeling.

She pointed out that the drug is popular among different demographics in the Gulf, with some people using it recreationally, “but also amongst university students studying for exams to increase productivity. We have seen it across the region used by taxi drivers, by lorry drivers and truck drivers … as well as workers that are looking to work a second shift.”

“The biggest piece of information about Captagon that really should be better communicated to the public, particularly in destination markets like Saudi Arabia, is the fact that we do not know what is inside of Captagon pills anymore,” Rose said.

Elaborating on the point, she said: “It used to be ethylene in the 1960s to the 1980s … but really since the early 2000s, we have seen a variety of different Captagon formulas pop up through one of the very few chemical analyses that have been conducted.”

“And because of this lack of uniformity, producers can make Captagon whatever they want it to be, and that causes and should spark serious, serious public health concerns.”

Saudi Arabia, according to Rose, is a “lucrative” market for Captagon-trafficking networks mainly due to wealth and demographic composition, including “a considerable population of youth with a lot of cash to spend.”

A new documentary by Arab News, titled “Abu Hilalain: Inside the Kingdom’s crackdown on Captagon,” delves into Saudi Arabia’s battle against Captagon, examining the origins, methods of production, and trafficking of the drug while investigating its consumption within the country.

 

The Kingdom vs Captagon
Inside Saudi Arabia's war against the drug destroying lives across the Arab world

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Israeli forces kill 4 West Bank Palestinians: ministry

Israeli soldiers are seen during a military operation, Nov. 19, 2023, in the Balata refugee camp, West Bank. (AP)
Israeli soldiers are seen during a military operation, Nov. 19, 2023, in the Balata refugee camp, West Bank. (AP)
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Israeli forces kill 4 West Bank Palestinians: ministry

Israeli soldiers are seen during a military operation, Nov. 19, 2023, in the Balata refugee camp, West Bank. (AP)
  • The Palestinian Authority says Israeli fire and settler attacks in the West Bank, occupied by Israel since 1967, have killed more than 250 Palestinians during the current conflict

RAMALLAH, Palestinian Territories: Israeli forces shot dead four Palestinians, two of them teenagers, in the north of the occupied West Bank on Wednesday, the Palestinian health ministry said.
Sixteen-year-old Omar Abu Bakr was killed by “a bullet to the chest fired by soldiers from the occupation (Israel) in Yabad,” the health ministry said in a statement.
Abdul Nasser Mustafa Riyahi, 24, succumbed to his wounds after being shot in the Balata refugee camp near Nablus, according to the ministry.
The official Palestinian news agency Wafa said Israeli forces had burst into the camp in the morning and surrounded a house.
“Confrontations broke out during which the soldiers opened live fire at the Palestinians injuring four. One of them later died of his wounds,” it said.
Earlier, the health ministry said Israeli troops had killed two Palestinians elsewhere in the West Bank’s north.
It said Abdul Rahman Imad Khaled Bani Odeh, 16, and Moath Ibrahim Zahran, 23, were killed by Israeli fire in the village of Tamun and the nearby Al-Fara refugee camp.
An AFP correspondent in Tamun saw Israeli soldiers enter the village to make arrests and witnessed clashes breaking out with residents.
Further south, in the Dheisheh refugee camp near Bethlehem, three Palestinians “were wounded by the bullets of the occupation (Israel), one of them seriously,” the ministry said in a separate statement.
The Israeli army did not immediately respond to AFP’s request for comment.
Violence in the West Bank has flared since the outbreak of the war between Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
The Palestinian Authority says Israeli fire and settler attacks in the West Bank, occupied by Israel since 1967, have killed more than 250 Palestinians during the current conflict.
Hamas gunmen from Gaza launched an unprecedented attack on southern Israel on October 7, killing about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking around 240 hostages, Israeli officials say.
In response, Israel has carried out air strikes and a ground offensive in Gaza that have killed more than 16,200 people, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run government there.
 

 


EP rapporteur on Turkiye visits philanthropist Kavala in prison

EP rapporteur on Turkiye visits philanthropist Kavala in prison
Updated 07 December 2023
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EP rapporteur on Turkiye visits philanthropist Kavala in prison

EP rapporteur on Turkiye visits philanthropist Kavala in prison
  • Sanchez called on Turkish authorities to implement the European Court of Human Rights rulings with regard to Kavala and other cases

ISTANBUL: The European Parliament’s Turkiye rapporteur Nacho Sanchez Amor visited Osman Kavala in prison, the first such visit by a member of the European Parliament with the jailed Turkish philanthropist, according to a press release on Wednesday.
Kavala, 65, was sentenced to life in prison without parole in April 2022, while seven others in the case received 18 years based on claims they organized and financed nationwide protests in 2013.
Sanchez thanked Turkish ministry of justice and foreign affairs on social messaging platform X.
“I hope this openness is a sign of a new period for the EU-Turkiye relations,” he added.
Sanchez called on Turkish authorities to implement the European Court of Human Rights rulings with regard to Kavala and other cases.
The European Commission’s annual report criticized Turkiye for not implementing a ruling of the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights that called for the release of Kavala, who was detained in 2017 over attempting to oust the government.
Failure to comply with the Kavala ruling showed it has been “drifting away from the standards of human rights and fundamental freedoms to which it has subscribed as a member of the Council of Europe,” the report said.

 


Israel approves ‘minimal’ fuel increase to Gaza: PM office

Palestinians wounded in the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip arrive at a hospital in Rafah, on Wednesday, Dec. 6, 2023. (AP
Palestinians wounded in the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip arrive at a hospital in Rafah, on Wednesday, Dec. 6, 2023. (AP
Updated 07 December 2023
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Israel approves ‘minimal’ fuel increase to Gaza: PM office

Palestinians wounded in the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip arrive at a hospital in Rafah, on Wednesday, Dec. 6, 2023. (AP
  • For the first time since becoming UN chief in 2017, Guterres invoked Article 99 of the Charter, which allows him to “bring to the attention of the Security Council any matter which in his opinion may threaten the maintenance of international peace
  • Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen hit back, saying Guterres’ mandate was a “danger to world peace”

JERUSALEM: Israel on Wednesday approved a “minimal” increase in fuel supplies to war-torn Gaza to prevent a “humanitarian collapse,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said.
The announcement comes as the United Nations warned of a total breakdown of public order in Gaza as fighting intensifies in the south of the Palestinian territory.
A “minimal supplement of fuel — necessary to prevent a humanitarian collapse and the outbreak of epidemics” had been approved to enter “into the southern Gaza Strip,” Netanyahu’s office wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
It said the fuel supply increase was “necessary to avoid a humanitarian collapse and the outbreak of epidemics in the south of the Gaza Strip,” which is controlled by Hamas.
“The minimal amount will be determined from time to time by the War Cabinet according to the morbidity situation and humanitarian situation in the Strip,” it added.
On Wednesday, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he feared that public order would “completely break down soon” in Gaza.
“Amid constant bombardment by the Israel Defense Forces, and without shelter or the essentials to survive, I expect public order to completely break down soon due to the desperate conditions, rendering even limited humanitarian assistance impossible,” he said in a letter to the UN Security Council.
For the first time since becoming UN chief in 2017, Guterres invoked Article 99 of the Charter, which allows him to “bring to the attention of the Security Council any matter which in his opinion may threaten the maintenance of international peace and security.”
Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen hit back, saying Guterres’ mandate was a “danger to world peace.”
G7 leaders, including Israel’s key partners, called on Wednesday for “more urgent” action to tackle the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
Israel’s announcement comes two days after its main ally, the United States, called for more fuel to be allowed into Gaza, with US diplomats referring to “very frank conversations.”
More than 16,200 people, most of them women and children, have been killed in Gaza by Israeli bombardments since October, according to Hamas health officials.
Fighting between Israel and Hamas began when Hamas militants launched a deadly cross-border attack on October 7, killing 1,200 people, mostly civilians, according to Israeli authorities.
 

 


Fighting between Israel and Hamas rages in Gaza’s second-largest city, blocking aid from population

Fighting between Israel and Hamas rages in Gaza’s second-largest city, blocking aid from population
Updated 07 December 2023
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Fighting between Israel and Hamas rages in Gaza’s second-largest city, blocking aid from population

Fighting between Israel and Hamas rages in Gaza’s second-largest city, blocking aid from population
  • “Palestinians in Gaza are living in utter, deepening horror,” UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said at a news conference in Geneva
  • Israel’s campaign has killed more than 16,200 people in Gaza — most of them women and children — and wounded more than 42,000, the territory’s Health Ministry said late Tuesday

RAFAH, Gaza Strip: Israeli troops battled Hamas militants Wednesday in the center of the Gaza Strip’s second-largest city, the military said, pressing a ground offensive that has sent tens of thousands of Palestinians fleeing to the territory’s southernmost edge and prevented aid groups from delivering food, water and other supplies.
Two months into the war, Israel’s offensive into southern Gaza was bringing to Khan Younis the same fierce urban fighting and intensified bombardment that obliterated much of Gaza City and the north of the territory in past weeks.
But in the south, the areas where Palestinians can seek safety are rapidly shrinking. Ahead of the assault, Israel urged residents to evacuate Khan Younis, the childhood home of two top Hamas leaders. But much of the city’s population remains in place, along with large numbers who were displaced from northern Gaza and are unable to leave or wary of fleeing to the disastrously overcrowded far south.
Cut off from outside aid, people in UN-run shelters in Khan Younis are fighting over food, said Nawraz Abu Libdeh, a shelter resident who has been displaced six times. “The hunger war has started,” he said. “This is the worst of all wars.”
The UN says some 1.87 million people — over 80 percent of the population of 2.3 million — have already fled their homes, many of them displaced multiple times. Almost the entire population is now crowded into southern and central Gaza, dependent on aid. International officials escalated warnings over the worsening humanitarian calamity.
“Palestinians in Gaza are living in utter, deepening horror,” UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said at a news conference in Geneva. “My humanitarian colleagues have described the situation as apocalyptic.”
Israel’s campaign has killed more than 16,200 people in Gaza — most of them women and children — and wounded more than 42,000, the territory’s Health Ministry said late Tuesday. The agency has said many are also trapped under rubble. The ministry does not differentiate between civilian and combatant deaths.
Israel has vowed to fight on, saying it can no longer accept Hamas rule or the group’s military presence in Gaza after the Oct. 7 attack that triggered the war. Hamas and other militants killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took captive some 240 men, women and children in that attack.
An estimated 138 hostages remain in Gaza after more than 100 were freed during a cease-fire last week. Their plight and accounts of rape and other atrocities committed during the rampage have deepened Israel’s outrage and further galvanized support for the war.
URBAN WARFARE NORTH AND SOUTH
The refugee camp within Khan Younis was the childhood home of Hamas’ top leader in Gaza, Yehya Sinwar, and the group’s military chief, Mohammed Deif, as well as other Hamas leaders — giving it major symbolic importance in Israel’s offensive.
Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari said Sinwar is “not above ground, he is underground,” but would not elaborate on where Israel believes him to be. ”Our job is to find Sinwar and kill him.”
The military said its special forces at Khan Younis had broken through defense lines of Hamas fighters and were assaulting their positions in the city center. It said warplanes destroyed tunnel shafts and troops seized a Hamas outpost as well as several weapons caches. The Israeli accounts of the battle could not be independently confirmed.
Video released by the military showed commandos and troops moving amid sounds of gunfire down city streets strewn with wreckage and buildings with giant holes punched into them. Some took positions behind an earthen berm, while others inside a home fired out through a window, its flowered curtains fluttering around them.
Hagari said heavy fighting was also continuing in the north, in the Jabaliya refugee camp and the district of Shujaiya.
Hamas posted video it said showed its fighters in Shujaiya moving through narrow alleys and wrecked buildings and opening fire with rocket-propelled grenades on Israel armored vehicles. Several of the vehicles are shown bursting into flames.
Its account could not be independently confirmed. But Hamas’ continuing ability to fight in areas where Israel entered with overwhelming force weeks ago signals that eradicating the group while avoiding further mass casualties and displacement — as Israel’s top ally, the US, has requested — could prove elusive.
Israel accuses Hamas, which has ruled Gaza for 16 years, of using civilians as human shields when the militants operate in residential areas and blames that for the high civilian death toll. But Israel has not given detailed accounts of its individual strikes, some of which have leveled entire city blocks.
The military says 88 of its soldiers have been killed in the Gaza ground offensive. It also says some 5,000 militants have been killed, without saying how it arrived at its count.
PUSHED TO THE EDGE
Tens of thousands of people have fled from Khan Younis and other areas to Rafah, on Gaza’s southern border with Egypt, the UN said. Rafah, normally home to around 280,000 people, has already been packed with more than 470,000 who fled from other parts of Gaza.
On the other side of the border, Egypt has deployed thousands of troops and erected earthen barriers to prevent any mass influx of refugees. It says an influx would undermine its decades-old peace treaty with Israel, and it doubts Israel will let them back into Gaza.
Overcrowded shelters and homes are now overflowing, residents say.
“You find displaced people in the streets, in schools, in mosques, in hospitals … everywhere,” said Hamza Abu Mustafa, a teacher who lives near a school-turned-shelter in Rafah and is hosting three families himself.
For the past three days, aid groups have only been able to distribute supplies in and around Rafah — and mainly just flour and water, the UN’s humanitarian aid office said. Access farther north has been cut off by fighting and road closures by Israeli forces. The World Food Program warned of the worsening of “the catastrophic hunger crisis that already threatens to overwhelm the civilian population.”
Israeli strikes continued in Rafah, where the military has told evacuees to take refuge. One strike Wednesday evening leveled a home in the town’s Shaboura district, where hours earlier the military had announced a pause in operations to allow delivery of aid. A wave of wounded flowed into a nearby hospital, including at least six children. Medics carried in the limp form of one little girl, her face bloodied.
“We live in fear every moment, for our children, ourselves, our families,” said Dalia Abu Samhadaneh, now living in Shaboura with her family after fleeing Khan Younis. “We live with the anxiety of expulsion.” She said diarrhea was rampant among children, with little clean water available.
A Palestinian woman who identified herself as Umm Ahmed said the harsh conditions and limited access to toilets are especially difficult for women who are pregnant or menstruating. Some have taken to social media to request menstrual pads, which are increasingly hard to find.
“For women and girls, the suffering is double,” Umm Ahmed said. “It’s more humiliation.”
Gaza has been without electricity since the first week of the war, and several hospitals have been forced to shut down for lack of fuel to operate emergency generators. Israel has barred entry of food, water, medicine, fuel and other supplies, except for a trickle of aid from Egypt.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his Security Cabinet has approved small deliveries of fuel into the southern Gaza Strip “from time to time” to prevent a humanitarian crisis and the spread of disease. The “minimal amount” of fuel will be set by the war cabinet, a three-member authority in charge of managing the war against Hamas, Netanyahu said.
The decision comes as Israel faces mounting pressure from the United States to ramp up aid to Gaza.
Israel has greatly restricted shipments of fuel, saying Hamas diverts it for military purposes.
 

 


Displaced Palestinians forced to fend for themselves in Gaza’s south

Displaced Palestinians forced to fend for themselves in Gaza’s south
Updated 07 December 2023
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Displaced Palestinians forced to fend for themselves in Gaza’s south

Displaced Palestinians forced to fend for themselves in Gaza’s south
  • The grocery stores in Rafah, like elsewhere in Gaza, are empty

RAFAH, Palestinian Territories: A plastic sheet rigged up as a tent, branches gathered from here and there to make a fire — at the southern tip of Gaza, displaced Palestinians are settling in as best they can.
Thousands of Palestinians are fleeing Khan Yunis — Gaza’s main southern city, now surrounded by the Israeli army — toward Rafah, less than 10 kilometers (six miles) away on the territory’s closed border with Egypt.
Many among them had already been displaced once in recent weeks, heading south to escape heavy fighting between Israel and Hamas in the north.
“We arrived here with no shelter and got rained on last night. There isn’t anything to eat — no bread, no flour,” Ghassan Bakr told AFP.
The grocery stores in Rafah, like elsewhere in Gaza, are empty. At the market, the farmers who can still cultivate their land sell tomatoes, onions, cabbages and other vegetables.
On a sidewalk, children throw themselves at a large pot of semolina prepared by a charity, scraping at the bottom with bowls and plastic containers.
Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are living in “utter, deepening horror,” the UN’s human rights chief said Wednesday, nearly two months after the start of the war, which has displaced around three-quarters of the territory’s 2.4 million people.
The fighting was triggered by Hamas’s bloody October 7 attack on Israel, during which 240 people were taken hostage and around 1,200 were killed, most of them civilians, Israeli authorities say.
The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza said Tuesday that 16,248 people had been killed since Israel’s campaign began, more than 70 percent of them women and children.
Makeshift tents have sprung up in the sandy wasteland between half-finished buildings, with lines strung between them for drying laundry.
All around are suitcases, stacks of firewood and displaced people wandering about with jerrycans, looking for water.
“There have been bombardments, destruction, leaflets dropping, threats and phone calls to evacuate and leave Khan Yunis, but to go where?” asked Khamis Al-Dalu.
More than 80 percent of Gazans are either refugees or descendants of refugees who were driven out or left their land when Israel was founded in 1948.
“Where do you want us to go for God’s sake?” Dalu continued, his temper flaring.
“We left Khan Yunis and now we’re in tents in Rafah, with no roofs, no walls.”
In Khan Yunis, the fighting continued on Wednesday. In otherwise deserted streets, a few remaining residents navigated the rubble left by Israeli strikes as the injured were ferried to hospitals.
“We were sitting and all of a sudden there was a strike. I was hit in the head by a falling stone,” Hussein Abu Hamada told AFP.
“We’re devastated, mentally overwhelmed,” said Amal Mahdi, who also survived a raid. “We need someone to help us, to find a solution for us to get out of this situation.”
On Wednesday afternoon, the Israeli army dropped leaflets over the city inscribed with a verse from the Qur'an: “And the flood seized them while they were wrongdoers” — an apparent reference to the October 7 attack, dubbed Operation Al-Aqsa Flood by Hamas.
The Israeli army did not immediately respond to questions about the leaflets.
“What did we do wrong?” asked Umm Shadi Abu el-Tarabeech, in Rafah after being displaced from the north.
“We don’t have guns, we’re not terrorists and we haven’t done anything bad. We’re defenseless civilians. We’ve looked for refuge in one place after the other, and now they’re dropping these?” she said.
“What is the purpose of these words?”