MARSEILLE, France: The alleged leader of a major drug gang from the southern French port city of Marseille has been arrested in Morocco, French authorities announced on Saturday.
Marseille, France’s second-largest city but also one of its poorest metropoles, has been hit by drug-related violence.
“One of Marseille’s biggest drug traffickers was arrested in Morocco. Bravo to the police officers who tirelessly continue the fight against drug trafficking,” French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
He thanked the authorities of Morocco, saying “a big blow” had been dealt to drug trafficking.
Marseille prosecutor Nicolas Bessone told AFP that Felix Bingui, 33, had been detained in the port city of Casablanca, Morocco’s largest city.
Bingui is believed to be the leader of Yoda, one of Marseille’s main drug gangs.
According to a source, the arrest was the result of months-long cooperation between French and Moroccan officials.
The gritty Mediterranean city’s northern neighborhoods, notorious for their rundown streets and housing estates, are seen as the hub of the narcotics trade.
The city has in recent years witnessed a turf war for control of the highly profitable drug market between Yoda and another major clan known as DZ Mafia.
According to a source close to the investigation, Bingui regularly shuttled back and forth between France and Morocco until the outbreak of the turf war with DZ Mafia in February, 2023.
Last year, 49 people were killed and more than 120 received injuries in drug-related violence between rival gangs in Marseille.
A notorious drug smuggler, Karim Harrat, was extradited from Morocco to France in 2023.
French drug gang leader arrested in Morocco: officials
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French drug gang leader arrested in Morocco: officials
- “One of Marseille’s biggest drug traffickers was arrested in Morocco,” French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin wrote on X
- He thanked the authorities of Morocco, saying “a big blow” had been dealt to drug trafficking
Israeli fire kills 11 Palestinians in Gaza, including two children, local hospital officials say
- The two boys were killed in separate incidents
- It wasn’t immediately clear whether the men had crossed into Israeli-controlled areas
CAIRO: Israeli forces on Wednesday killed at least 11 Palestinians in Gaza, including two 13-year-old boys who were collecting firewood, three journalists and a woman, hospitals in the war-battered enclave said.
The Israeli military did not immediately comment on any of the incidents.
The two boys were killed in separate incidents. In one strike, the 13-year-old, his father and a 22-year old man were hit by Israeli drones on the eastern side of the central Bureij refugee camp, according to officials from Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the central town of Deir Al-Balah, which received the bodies.
It wasn’t immediately clear whether the men had crossed into Israeli-controlled areas.
The other 13-year-old was shot and killed by troops while collecting firewood in the eastern town of Bani Suheila, the Nasser hospital said, after receiving the body. In a footage circulated online, the boy’s father is seen weeping over his son’s body on a hospital bed.
Later Wednesday, an Israeli strike on the central town of Zahraa hit a vehicle carrying three Palestinian journalists who were filming a newly established displacement camp managed by an Egyptian government committee, said Mohammed Mansour, the committee’s spokesman.
The bodies of two journalists were taken to the Shifa hospital in Gaza City, while the third body was taken to Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital.
Mansour said the journalists were documenting the committee’s work in the newly established camp in the Netzarim area in central Gaza. He said the strike occurred about 5 kilometers (3 miles) from the Israeli-controlled area.
He said the vehicle was known to the Israeli military as belonging to the Egyptian committee.
Video footage circulating online showed the charred, bombed-out vehicle by the roadside, smoke still rising from the wreckage, with debris scattered about.
Nasser Hospital officials also said they received the body of a Palestinian woman shot and killed by Israeli troops in the Muwasi area of the southern city of Khan Younis, which is not controlled by the military.
In a separate attack, three brothers were killed in a tank shelling in the Bureij camp, according to Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital, where the bodies were taken.
The deaths were the latest among Palestinians in Gaza since the ceasefire that stopped the war between Hamas and Israel went into effect in October.
More than 470 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire, according to the strip’s health ministry. At least 77 have been killed by Israeli gunfire near a ceasefire line that splits the territory between Israeli-held areas and most of Gaza’s Palestinian population, the ministry says.
The ministry, which is part of the Hamas-led government, maintains detailed casualty records that are seen as generally reliable by UN agencies and independent experts.
The ceasefire paused two years of war between Israel and Hamas militants and allowed a surge in humanitarian aid into Gaza, mainly food.
But residents say shortages of blankets and warm clothes remain, and there is little wood for fires. There’s been no central electricity in Gaza since the first few days of the war in 2023, and fuel for generators is scarce.
More than 100 children who have died since the start of the ceasefire in October — a figure that includes a 27-day-old girl who died from hypothermia over the weekend.
