BEIRUT: Lebanon’s security forces said Friday they had made their largest cannabis seizure in history last month, unearthing 25 tons of the drug intended for Africa.
The Mediterranean country on March 15 announced a lockdown to stop the spread of COVID-19, which has now officially infected 609 and killed 20 nationwide.
On March 16, the Internal Security Forces stopped “eight trucks headed to the Beirut port carrying thousands of plastic bags of soil,” the security branch said.
After inspection, “huge quantities of hashish reaching around 25 tons were seized... that had been professionally hidden inside bags of soil,” it said in a statement.
“This quantity is the largest seized in the history of Lebanon,” it added, and had been intended for “an African country.”
The marijuana came in a variety of kinds including “Beirut mood,” “Spring flower,” or even “Kiki do you love me,” the ISF said.
Consuming, growing and selling marijuana is illegal in Lebanon, but in the marginalized east of the country its production blossomed during the 1975-1990 civil war.
Authorities have since struggled to clamp down on the trade and its production has turned into a multi-million-dollar business.
In 2016, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime ranked Lebanon as the third main source of cannabis resin after Morocco and Afghanistan, which are both much larger.
Security forces regularly bust attempted drug exports at Beirut airport and have destroyed marijuana fields.
But growers have fought back, protesting over a lack of alternatives for their livelihoods. In 2012, they fired rockets at army bulldozers trying to raze their crop.
Since 2018, lawmakers have however been considering legalizing the drug for medical purposes to give a boost to Lebanon’s ailing economy.
Lebanon makes largest ever cannabis drug bust
https://arab.news/jjnds
Lebanon makes largest ever cannabis drug bust
- The Mediterranean country on March 15 announced a lockdown to stop the spread of COVID-19
- Security forces regularly bust attempted drug exports at Beirut airport and have destroyed marijuana fields
NGOs condemn settler attack on activists in West Bank
- Herzog said on X he strongly condemned the violence that “stands in complete opposition to the values of the State of Israel“
- The attack occurred in the Palestinian village of Qusra in the northern West Bank
JERUSALEM: Two Israeli NGOs denounced an attack Friday in which settlers used sticks to beat two activists in the occupied West Bank, calling the incident “state violence” and “Jewish terrorism.”
Israeli President Isaac Herzog said on X he strongly condemned the violence that “stands in complete opposition to the values of the State of Israel.”
“This serious incident adds to a series of recent... unacceptable events that harm, above all, the (West Bank colonization) enterprise and the reputation of the State of Israel,” he added.
The attack occurred in the Palestinian village of Qusra in the northern West Bank.
Israeli human rights group B’Tselem released a video filmed by one of the activists, which showed at least four masked men armed with sticks jumping out of a four-wheel drive vehicle that arrived at high speed.
Someone was then heard yelling “No, please, no” in Hebrew, followed by thuds and cries of pain, before the attackers departed.
Two people were left on the ground, one of them motionless and stretched out face down with a bleeding head.
Israeli emergency service Magen David Adom said the two wounded individuals, who are in their fifties, were taken by helicopter to a hospital in Israel.
The Israeli military said it was searching for suspects.
Excluding Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem, more than 500,000 Israelis live in West Bank settlements and outposts, which are illegal under international law.
Around three million Palestinians live in the territory, which Israel has occupied since 1967.
In recent months, attacks attributed to Israeli settlers have multiplied in the West Bank, targeting Palestinians, Israeli and foreign anti-settlement activists and sometimes Israeli soldiers.
The Israeli government, considered one of the most right-wing in the country’s history, has fast-tracked settlement expansion.
B’Tselem said “the unrestrained attacks carried out by settlers throughout the West Bank constitute state violence.”
“They are carried out with full backing, participation, and assistance from state authorities, as part of a strategy of Israel’s apartheid regime seeking to advance and complete the takeover of Palestinian land,” it added.
Avi Dabush, executive director of Rabbis for Human Rights, said “the blood of our friends is on the hands of those who support and finance Jewish terrorism, either directly, through the government or by turning a blind eye.”
He also condemned “the army’s impotence” in a statement that called on “Israeli society to pull itself together ... in order to put an end to this endemic terrorism.”
