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LONDON: Iraqi authorities said that they have dismantled a criminal network in the Syrian capital Damascus involved in international drug trafficking.

The Iraqi Interior Ministry’s General Directorate of Drug Affairs revealed that officers seized more than 1.3 million capsules of captagon, an amphetamine-type stimulant, during a special operation carried out in collaboration with their Syrian counterparts. The haul weighed about 215 kilograms and had a street value of millions of dollars.

Because the operation took place outside of Iraq, approval was obtained from the Rusafa Central Investigative Court in Baghdad. It was carried out under the supervision of Iraq’s prime minister, Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani, and its interior minister, Abdul Amir Al-Shammari.

The ministry said the operation was the result of thorough intelligence efforts and information from reliable sources, obtained in collaboration with the Syrian Anti-Narcotics Department.

It represented a significant advance in global efforts to address cross-border threats, the ministry added, and demonstrated Iraq’s commitment to protecting the public from drug trafficking.

GENEVA: The United Nations’ humanitarian agency said Wednesday that the conditions for delivering aid into Gaza were “far from sufficient” to meet the immense needs of its “desperate, hungry people.”

OCHA also said fuel deliveries were nowhere near what is needed to keep health, emergency, water and telecommunications services running in the besieged Palestinian territory.

This week, Israel launched daily pauses in its military operations in some parts of the Gaza Strip and opened secure routes to enable UN agencies and other aid groups to distribute food in the densely populated territory of more than two million.

However, these pauses alone “do not allow for the continuous flow of supplies required to meet immense needs levels in Gaza,” OCHA said in an update.

“While the UN and its partners are taking advantage of any opportunity to support people in need during the unilateral tactical pauses, the conditions for the delivery of aid and supplies are far from sufficient,” the agency said.

“For example, for UN drivers to access the Kerem Shalom crossing — a fenced-off area — Israeli authorities must approve the mission, provide a safe route through which to travel, provide multiple ‘green lights’ on movement, as well as a pause in bombing, and, ultimately, open the iron gates to allow them to enter.”

OCHA warned that four days into Israel’s “tactical pauses,” deaths due to hunger and malnutrition were still occurring, as were casualties among those seeking aid.

“Desperate, hungry people” continue to offload the small amounts of aid from the trucks that are able to exit the crossings, it said.

“Current fuel entries are insufficient to meet life-saving critical needs and represent a drop in the ocean,” it added.

The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification Initiative — a group of monitors who advise the UN on impending crises — said Tuesday the worst-case scenario of famine was now unfolding in Gaza.

OCHA called for all crossings into Gaza to open, and a broad range of humanitarian and commercial supplies to be allowed in.