Did Israel bomb the southern suburbs of Beirut with bombs containing “depleted uranium”?

Most Beirutians probably have this dull noise still etched in their memory. Exactly two weeks after the first salvo which hit the bunker where Hassan Nasrallah was, the Israeli air force dropped Friday at midnight sharp on the southern suburbs of Beirut a new shipment of several dozen “bunker busters”, bombs designed to explode after penetrating deep into the ground.

These jerky explosions, which shake the walls for kilometers around, also give rise to large plumes of smoke testifying to the power of the explosives used. According to the Israeli army, no less than “80 tons” of explosives were dropped on September 27 by eight F-15 planes on at least four residential buildings of at least seven floors. An unprecedented operation in Lebanon launched with the aim of assassinating the leader of Hezbollah, then located in a bunker buried nearly three meters deep, causing at the same time more than a hundred civilian victims, according to the estimates from the Lebanese Ministry of Health.

The Gaza precedent

There are several types of “bunker busters”, as these weapons are called in military jargon, and the Israeli army has not officially communicated on the type of ammunition used. However, several elements suggest that the bombs used that day, and perhaps last Friday, by the Israeli air force contained a small radioactive charge: depleted uranium.

While serious doubts have emerged in recent days regarding possible radioactivity from these Israeli bombings, Professor Raïf Reda, president of the Lebanese Association of Social Medicine, called for “taking samples from the bombing sites and sending reports to the United Nations so that the world can see the criminal and bloody history of the Zionist enemy,” according to comments reported by the National News Agency (ANI).

As stated in the New York Timesa video published by the Israeli army showing the takeoff of the squadron responsible for carrying out this raid on September 27 attests that these aircraft were each equipped with six “BLU-109” type missiles. American-made, these munitions weigh a little less than a ton (2000 pounds) each according to the article, and are equipped with a kit called “JDAM” (joint direct attack munitions), a precision guidance system which is fixed on projectiles.

Without confirming the type of munitions used, two senior Israeli security officials confirmed to the American newspaper that “more than 80 bombs” had been dropped over a period of a few minutes to kill Hassan Nasrallah.

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According to a report from the US Naval Institute, the most common type of explosives contained inside these missiles are bombs called “GBU-31”. These guided munitions are known for their ability to penetrate highly reinforced concrete or steel structures thanks to a shell composed of depleted uranium (DU), used because of its high density which helps reinforce the resistance of the bombs after the impact on the ground.

The use of this particular type of weaponry in Beirut is all the more credible since the Israeli army was already pinned on the subject last June in its war in the Gaza Strip. In a report submitted to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, evidence documents the dropping of GBU-31, GBU-32 and GBU-39 bombs in at least six separate strikes carried out by Israeli aircraft on residential buildings, a school, refugee camps and a market, between October 9 and December 2, 2023.

In May, the Biden administration announced that it had suspended a shipment of these bombs weighing nearly a ton to Israel due to “concerns about the safety of civilians in Gaza”.

Pathogenic and fatal effects

Although depleted uranium is not as radioactive as its enriched counterpart used in nuclear weapons, it is still slightly radioactive and can release dangerous particles upon impact, contaminating populations and soils exposed to this weak radiation. . “When uranium is inhaled or ingested with food and drink, its pathogenic and deadly effects are fully manifested. When it enters the body, it is absorbed by the blood, which carries it to the organs (…) and can cause respiratory problems and risks to the kidneys. It can also reach an unborn child via the placenta,” details a report published by the International Association of Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW). The characteristics of DU and its consequences for human health and the environment are more widely documented in a report published by the European Commission in 2010.

This is why several resolutions calling for the adoption of a moratorium on the use of depleted uranium weapons have already been adopted by the UN General Assembly and the European Parliament. The latest dates back to 2022, when this type of weapons is also used in the war in Ukraine, whether by the Russian army or the Ukrainian army. However, no treaty regulating – let alone prohibiting – the use of these weapons in the AU in a military context exists to date.

These were also used during the American invasion of Iraq in 2003. According to a report by the US Air Force Central Command on this military campaign, the American air forces used a total of 24 bombs GBU-24 and GBU-28, weighing 1.8 tons each. If we are to believe the statements of the Israeli army, it would therefore have dropped in one minute an explosive charge equivalent to almost double that dropped by the American army during its entire Iraqi campaign, which lasted almost ‘a month and a half.

As revealed by The Orient-The Day in October 2023, the Israeli army had already been guilty on multiple occasions of the use in South Lebanon of bombs containing white phosphorus, prohibited against civilians or civilian objects according to international law, since start of the war on October 8.