Federal agents arrested two Mexican alleged cartel bosses on Thursday, including Joaquin Guzmán López, the son of infamous cartel boss Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, in one of the biggest victories for US law enforcement in recent years.

The two detained men belong to the Sinaloa cartel, one of the world’s most powerful drug-trafficking organizations, thought to be responsible for the trafficking of vast amounts of cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine and fentanyl into the US.

Investigators exploited a rift in the cartel and used the help of Guzmán López to lure the other suspect, Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, onto a flight bound for El Paso, Texas, where they were eventually arrested. Zambada is a co-founder of the Sinaloa cartel.

“‘El Mayo’ and Guzmán López join an increasingly long list of Sinaloa Cartel leaders and associates whom the Department of Justice holds accountable in the United States,” said Attorney General Merrick Garland.

Here are some of the men they join on that list:

José Antonio Yépez, “El Marro” (August 2020)

José Antonio Yépez Ortiz, arrested in August 2020 in Guanajuato, was considered by authorities to be the leader of the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel.

At the time, Mexico’s Secretary of Security Alfonso Durazo confirmed Yépez’s arrest via his official Twitter account, noting that “El Marro” was detained under a warrant for “organized crime and fuel theft.”

In January 2022, a court in Guanajuato sentenced Yépez to 60 years in prison for kidnapping, according to the State Attorney General’s office.

The Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel has generated most of its income through fuel theft and extortion, according to Mexican authorities. “El Marro” had been sought for months, with authorities targeting his family and close associates amid a surge in violence in Guanajuato, an area controlled by the cartel.

Rafael Caro Quintero (July 2022)

Rafael Caro Quintero, one of the FBI’s most wanted fugitives, was arrested in July 2022 by the Mexican Navy, having been on the run since 2013.

Born in 1952, Caro Quintero founded the now-defunct Guadalajara cartel in the 1970s with Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo and other drug traffickers, according to the US State Department. He is allegedly responsible for the cultivation, shipment, and distribution of large amounts of marijuana in Mexico.

An extradition order to the United States is pending against him. However, in July 2022, a judge temporarily suspended the extradition process. Caro Quintero is accused of kidnapping, torturing, and murdering Drug Enforcement Administration agent Enrique “Kiki” Camarena in 1985.

Ovidio Guzmán “El Ratón” (January 2023)

Ovidio Guzmán López, another son of “El Chapo,” is believed to play a significant role in the Sinaloa cartel, according to the US Department of the Treasury.

Guzmán was extradited from Mexico to the US in September 2023, as confirmed by the US Department of Justice. He faces charges in the US for conspiracy to import and distribute drugs, along with his brother Joaquín Guzmán López.

In 2019, the Mexican government captured Guzmán in Culiacán, Sinaloa, but later released him amid a tense situation between government forces and armed groups loyal to his organization. In October of that year, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador admitted his government had ordered the release, stating that it had prevented “a bloodbath.” Guzmán López was later recaptured on January 5, 2023, in a raid in Sinaloa, according to Mexican authorities.

His defense has requested additional time to review documents presented by US prosecutors during a recent hearing concerning the charges against him. According to the case file, the defendant’s lawyers sought a review under Rule 16, which mandates information exchange between attorneys and prosecutors for trial preparation. Consequently, a new hearing has been scheduled for October 1.

Néstor Isidro Pérez “El Nini” (November 2023)

Néstor Isidro Pérez Salas was arrested in November 2023 in Culiacán and subsequently extradited to the United States. The US considers him one of the leaders of the Sinaloa cartel and linked with the security apparatus of Los Chapitos, a faction of the cartel associated with the children of El Chapo.

Pérez faces charges in two federal indictments. The first, in the District of Columbia, includes cocaine and methamphetamine importation, firearm possession, and conspiracy to obstruct justice through murder.

The second, in the Southern District of New York, accuses him of leading a criminal enterprise responsible for multiple deaths – including of a DEA informant – fentanyl trafficking, obstruction of justice through the murder of an informant, kidnapping with fatal outcomes for eight people, including a minor, and money laundering.

On May 30, Pérez pleaded not guilty to the charges he faces in New York.

Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada and Joaquín Guzmán López (July 2024)

Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada was arrested on Thursday, July 25, 2024, in El Paso, Texas, alongside Joaquín Guzmán López, 38, son of El Chapo. Both are in US custody, according to the Department of Justice.

Zambada is considered by US authorities to be the current leader of the Sinaloa cartel. His name has appeared in drug trafficking files for years, but there are no known charges against him in Mexico.

The US Department of Justice stated that both face several charges “for leading the cartel’s criminal operations, including its deadly fentanyl manufacturing and trafficking networks.”

Authorities had been searching for Zambada for years, and in 2021 increased the reward for information leading to his arrest to $15 million.

On July 26 Zambada pleaded not guilty to drug trafficking charges in the United States.

The final lick of paint was barely dry on the newly built, white-tiled Al-Hasanat home when the war in Gaza erupted in October.

For three-year-old Ayten, the apartment in central Gaza was a source of immense pride. “This is our beautiful house,” she would say to anyone who would listen, her father, Ahmed Al-Hasanat, recounted.

But two weeks after the family moved into their new home, they were forced to flee the besieged Al-Mughraqa neighborhood, said Al-Hasanat. When they returned in November, they found their apartment badly damaged by Israeli strikes. A doll belonging to Ayten lay among the rubble, peeking out from behind a broken door.

“She said, ‘Daddy, my doll died.’”

From neatly organizing letters while staying in labyrinthine tent camps, to keeping branches from family olive trees, some say they are doing all they can to keep memories alive. For many, repeated displacement means reliving the trauma of generations uprooted by al-Nakba, or “the catastrophe,” when roughly 700,000 Palestinians fled or were forcibly expelled from their homes in historic Palestine, during the creation of Israel in 1948.

Israel launched its military offensive on October 7 after the militant group Hamas, which governs Gaza, attacked southern Israel. At least 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 others abducted, according to Israeli authorities.

Israeli strikes in Gaza have since killed more than 39,000 Palestinians and injured another 90,000, according to the Ministry of Health there.

A box of memories

Before the war, Fadi Adwan was studying for an electrical engineering degree at the Islamic University of Gaza, his dream since he was a teenager. These days, he fiddles with a navy and gray scientific calculator inside a tent in Rafah, in the south.

Israeli strikes destroyed several of the university’s buildings in the early days of the war, Palestinian news agency WAFA reported.

“Since I was in the 10th grade, I always had a calculator in my hands,” said the student, in his early 20s. He and his family have been displaced at least five times since October, he added. “I was thinking that we would go home after a month or so, but things were not the same in this war as previous wars.”

As her family prepared to flee, Ismail instructed her three sisters to fill a small box with their most treasured possessions. Her younger sister, Dina, contributed a necklace and some handwritten letters from close friends.

“Dr. Refaat’s voice is what keeps ringing in my head whenever I see my notes,” said Ismail. “He made us aware of the power of words and writing in delivering messages to the world, so we as Gazans will be heard.”

Cycles of displacement

Ismail wonders if she will relive the plight of her grandparents, whose lives were uprooted in 1948, when they were children. Her only living grandparent – her paternal grandma, who has Alzheimer’s disease – still remembers the horrors of al-Nakba, Ismail said.

“I hate it when I realize that I am reliving the exact wretched fate my grandparents once lived… I too will be traumatized and attached to my past life for as long as I live,” Ismail said.

Cycles of repeated displacement – without the promise of return – are embedded within Palestinian communities, according to Rochelle Davis, an associate professor of anthropology at Georgetown University.

“I used to wonder why they were leaving their homes in 1948,” said Adwan, the electrical engineering student. “But when this war happened, I understood why they left their homes; because of the horrific massacres that took place and because of the blood that was shed.”

Longing for ‘Palestine’

Small green leaves cling to a withering olive branch which 19-year-old Raghad Ezzat Hamouda took in October from a tree which had been planted by her father in their home in Beit Lahia, northern Gaza.

Having been displaced at least six times, Hamouda has preserved the branch – and a keffiyeh, the traditional scarf worn by many Palestinians, that belonged to her grandmother, Tamam – as they remind her of her “beloved homeland,” she says.

“Our ancestors were displaced by Israel in 1948, and the scene today in 2024 is repeated,” she added.

Once a marker of Palestinian life, Hamouda says her black-and-white fishnet-patterned keffiyeh is now a symbol of loss.

She said 85-year-old Tamam, a Nakba survivor, was injured when Israeli tanks opened fire as the family fled from northern to western Gaza in December. She was pushing her grandmother in her wheelchair at the time, she recalled. The teenager said her grandmother bled to death before they could get her to a hospital. “My grandmother was very affectionate and loved her grandchildren very much,” she said. “She loved to smile and gave us hope, especially during times of war.”

Along with house keys, some Palestinians will also have passports and land deeds from the 1940s testifying to pre-existing ownership of land in what is now Israel, according to Dr. Scott Webster, an academic from the University of Sydney. At least 70% of residents in Gaza are refugees, those who were displaced from their homes during the creation of Israel and their descendants, Amnesty International says.

“The house key is important because it brings with it all the memories, memories of the house and the garden around it, and the grapevines,” said Adwan, who has held onto his keys while being forced to flee multiple times, including from the besieged Al-Shifa Hospital.

“My father and mother have been working hard for 30 years to be able to build this house… It was partially destroyed in 2014. We built it again and it was destroyed again,” he said. “We are people with lives and memories… Maybe one day someone might care about our cause and help end our suffering.”

‘I am no longer me’

Israeli attacks in Gaza have killed at least 15,983 children, the Government Media Office reported on July 7.

Guardians may use personal objects – including toys – to provide emotional support for displaced children, said Davis, of Georgetown University. Meanwhile some adults hide their psychological trauma because they do not want to overload younger generations, according to Dr. Samah Jabr, a psychiatrist, psychotherapist and head of the mental health unit at the Palestinian Ministry of Health, in Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank.

For Al-Hasanat, saving Ayten’s doll from the wreckage of their home was an attempt to soothe his daughter’s psychological trauma.

“She used to always laugh and spread happiness,” he said, explaining that she has now developed anxiety-related habits.

“I want to look for a safe place for the sake of my children, and for the sake of a happy life for Ayten, who needs a lot to return to the way she used to be,” he added. “The pain is indescribable. We have become without feeling or sensation.”

Since their visit in November, Al-Hasanat said, their apartment has been completely destroyed by bombing. “Nothing remains of the house,” he said.

Ismail, the literature student, says the stress of war has made her feel like “a stranger in my own life.”

“That’s how I and all Gazans feel after being snatched out of our lives and being forced to evacuate,” she said. “I am exhausted, counting days waiting for this all to end. I feel I am no longer me.”

A group of 45 American physicians and nurses who volunteered in hospitals across Gaza have sent an open letter to US President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris sharing their experiences and demanding an immediate ceasefire and arms embargo.

The signatories unanimously described treating children who had suffered injuries they believed must have been deliberately inflicted. “Specifically, every one of us on a daily basis treated pre-teen children who were shot in the head and chest,” they wrote.

“We wish you could see the nightmares that plague so many of us since we have returned: dreams of children maimed and mutilated by our weapons, and their inconsolable mothers begging us to save them. We wish you could hear the cries and screams our consciences will not let us forget.”

Many in the group have public health backgrounds and experiences volunteering in other conflict zones such as Ukraine and Iraq, according to the letter. “We believe we are well positioned to comment on the massive human toll from Israel’s attack on Gaza, especially the toll it has taken on women and children,” reads the letter posted to X on Thursday by Dr. Feroze Sidwa, who spearheaded the writing of the letter with the other physicians.

“We believe our government is obligated to do this, both under American law and International Humanitarian Law, and that it is the right thing to do,” the letter said.

The ‘only independent monitors’ in Gaza

“In Gaza, there’s no independent monitor,” he said. “If you’re not going to believe the Palestinians, then you should believe 50 doctors who’ve gone there at different times and places.”

Apart from Palestinian journalists living in Gaza, there has been no media access to the enclave since October 7, with a few exceptions of entry under official escort.

Hamawy signed the letter to recount what he saw with his own eyes. “We all saw a complete devastation of a society, of people’s lives, of health care structure,” he said.

Hamawy has worked as a surgeon in Sarajevo, in New York City on 9/11, and in Iraq, where he performed life-saving surgery on US Senator Tammy Duckworth in 2004 after her helicopter was hit by an RPG. But he said those experiences in other conflict zones were not comparable to what he had witnessed in Gaza, adding that 90% of those he had seen killed there were women and children.

Hamawy worked at the European Gaza hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis in May of this year where he performed about 115 reconstructive surgeries and treated mostly children under 14 years old. He worked on amputations, burns, and gunshot wounds to the face, he said.

Another patient was a little boy who picked up what he thought was a can of tuna to bring back to his family in Rafah, Hamawy recalled. But the metal object was in fact an unexploded cluster bomb, according to Hamawy, who said that after opening it in front of his family, the child lost his left arm, both his legs, and three fingers on his right arm.

‘No kid gets shot twice by a sniper by mistake’

The photos were sent to him by a first-year medical resident who had been forced to perform the surgery and requested Perlmutter’s expertise. When Perlmutter asked why senior surgeons hadn’t done the operation, the resident explained that they had been killed in a bombing.

Describing a hospital overrun, Perlmutter said after every bombing, he would find injured children laid across the floor, their loved ones panicking and crying.

“Some are dead, some will die in front of you, and some you can save. You try to save the ones you can save,” Perlmutter said.

He recalled two patients aged around six years old, who had suffered gunshots to their heads and chests – wounds which suggested they had been deliberately targeted, he said.

“No kid gets shot twice by a sniper by mistake,” Perlmutter said, adding that the shots were “dead center” to their chests.

As Perlmutter tried to treat the children with head injuries, he said, their “brains poured out” in his hands, in what he described as a personally traumatic moment.

‘Everyone in Gaza is sick, injured, or both’

Launched in response to Hamas-led terror attacks in Israel on October 7 which killed at least 1,200 people, Israel’s monthlong military offensive in Gaza has left more than 39,000 Palestinians dead, according to the Gazan Health Ministry. The letter’s signatories estimate that the true toll of the war could be in excess of 92,000, if it included deaths from starvation or disease and bodies still buried under the rubble.

Last week the World Health Organization said the polio virus had been found in sewage samples, putting thousands of Palestinians at risk of contracting a disease that can cause paralysis.

Under such conditions, the American medical workers warned that epidemics could lead to the deaths of tens of thousands more children. The displacement of people to areas with no running water or toilets “is virtually guaranteed to result in widespread death from viral and bacterial diarrheal diseases and pneumonias, particularly in children under the age of five,” the letter said.

“Everyone in Gaza is sick, injured, or both,” with few exceptions, their letter said. “We are not politicians. We do not claim to have all the answers. We are simply physicians and nurses who cannot remain silent about what we saw in Gaza.” the letter said.

Reporting contributed by Tala Alrajjal, Sam Fossum and Eugenia Ugrinovich.

The British government has dropped plans to oppose the International Criminal Court’s application for an arrest warrant against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over alleged war crimes in Gaza, according to UK news agency PA Media..

“This was a proposal by the previous government which was not submitted before the election, and which I can confirm the Government will not be pursuing in line with our long standing position that this is a matter for the court to decide on,” said a spokeswoman for the UK’s new Labour government, which earlier this month replaced a Conservative government led by former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.

ICC prosecutor Karim Khan announced in May he was seeking arrest warrants for Netanyahu, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and three Hamas leaders – including Gaza chief Yahya Sinwar – over charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The court has no means of enforcement, however ICC members have an obligation to cooperate fully with its decisions. If the warrants are granted, Netanyahu and others could risk arrest when traveling to the 124 countries that are ICC members – including Germany and the United Kingdom.

The international court still must assess submissions from other powers before making a decision on whether to grant the request for arrest warrants.

Israel has faced significant criticism over the scale and force of its military the Israeli military campaign in Gaza, launched after the Hamas-led October 7 terror attacks, which killed at least 1,200 people and abducted more than 250 others. After months of war, many Gazans are facing mass displacement, destruction, and bouts of famine; more than 39,000 Palestinians have been killed and another 90,403 people injured since the Israeli offensive began, according to the Ministry of Health in the Palestinian enclave.

The UK’s governing Labour party and its leader, former human rights lawyer Keir Starmer, have faced pressure from supporters to take a tougher stance on the Gaza war.

On Thursday, US Vice President Kamala Harris vowed “not to be silent” about human suffering in Gaza, speaking to reporters after her meeting with Netanyahu in Washington. The White House has also faced increasing pressure to ease the suffering of Palestinian civilians under bombardment, which has included the use of US munitions.

Israel and the United States are not members of the ICC. However, the ICC claims jurisdiction over Gaza, East Jerusalem and the West Bank after Palestinian leaders formally agreed to be bound by the court’s founding principles in 2015.

“The fact that Hamas fighters need water doesn’t justify denying water from all the civilian population of Gaza,” he added.

Israeli lawmakers have vehemently condemned the application, with Netanyahu calling the decision “a political outrage.” Israel’s President Isaac Herzog said the announcement was “beyond outrageous.”

Israel’s military issued an evacuation order to residents in the southern part of Khan Younis, warning it would “forcefully operate” in the embattled Gazan town, according to a statement on Saturday morning.

Khan Younis has faced intensifying bombardment recently, and a fresh Israeli ground assault earlier this week killed dozens of Palestinians there. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) warned on Monday it would reduce its so-called humanitarian zone in the eastern part of the city, due to intelligence that militant group Hamas had embedded in the area.

Tens of thousands have been displaced over the past week. Israel said Friday that about 100 militants had been killed during recent fighting.

“The IDF is about to forcefully operate against the terrorist organizations and therefore calls on the remaining population left in the southern neighborhoods of Khan Yunis to temporarily evacuate to the adjusted Humanitarian Area in Al-Mawasi,” the military wrote on Telegram on Saturday.

The designated humanitarian area in Al-Mawasi has come under repeated Israeli attacks, including a strike on July 14 which reportedly killed 90 people and injured 300 more.

The statement said the move was in retaliation to “significant terrorist activity and rocket fire” emanating from southern Khan Younis. It added that the location previously defined as a humanitarian area “will be adjusted.”

Israel launched its military offensive in Gaza on October 7 after Hamas attacked southern Israel. At least 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 others abducted, according to Israeli authorities.

The military said on Saturday that “the calls for the temporary evacuation are being communicated to residents through SMS messages, recorded voice messages, phone calls, media broadcasts in Arabic and flyers,” adding that the early warning to civilians was “being made in order to mitigate harm to the civilian population.”

The United Nations estimated that about 150,000 people fled the area on Monday alone, following evacuation orders issued by the Israeli military, intensifying pressure on meager supplies of food and water, and places to seek shelter.

Aid agencies working in Gaza have warned previously that new rounds of evacuation orders are making the delivery of emergency rations even more difficult.

“People in Gaza are exhausted, living in inhumane conditions, with no safety at all,” the UN Relief and Works Agency posted on X on Monday.

On Thursday, the IDF said it had recovered the bodies of five Israeli hostages the previous day from a tunnel in an area of Khan Younis which it had previously designated as a “humanitarian area.”