Destruction in a Beirut neighborhood caused by Zionist airstrikes. Photo: Anwar Amro/AFP/Getty Images.
The head of the president of the Lebanese Association of Social Medicine decried that the Zionist entity has been bombing the southern suburbs of Beirut using banned bombs with depleted uranium warheads and called for collecting samples from the bombed sites to send them to the United Nations as part of an international investigation.
On October 6, Raif Reda, president of the Lebanese Association of Social Medicine, called for “collecting samples from the bombed sites and sending reports to the United Nations so the world can witness the bloody, criminal history of the Zionist enemy,” as reported by the National News Agency (NNA).
Warheads made with depleted uranium casings are designed to penetrate deep fortifications, causing significant destruction and releasing toxic gases. They are radioactive and have been linked to massive increases in cancer rates in Iraq following the US wars on that country in 1991 and 2003.
Lebanese newspaper L’Orient Today reported that Zionist air forces may have used depleted uranium bombs when its air force dropped 80 one-ton (2,000lb) bombs on at least four residential buildings in Beirut’s southern suburbs on September 27 to kill Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.
The New York Times noted that a video released by the occupation army showed that the warplanes that flew the mission to assassinate Nasrallah were each equipped with six US-made BLU-109 missiles.
L’Orient Today notes that according to a report from the US Naval Institute, the most common type of explosives inside these missiles are bombs classified as GBU-31.
“These guided munitions are known for their ability to penetrate heavily reinforced concrete or steel structures due to a casing made of depleted uranium (DU), used for its high density, which enhances the bombs’ resistance upon ground impact,” the Lebanese newspaper added.
The occupation air force has already been known to use these bombs in Gaza. A report submitted to the UN Human Rights Commission documented the use of GBU-31, GBU-32, and GBU-39 bombs in airstrikes by the Israeli air force on residential buildings, a school, refugee camps, and a market between October 9 and December 2, 2023.
Depleted uranium munitions pose a risk to people years after a site is bombed because they release radioactive particles upon impact and contaminate the soil and surrounding environment.
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It is well known that the US Air Force used depleted uranium warheads during both its wars in Iraq.
Researcher Souad al-Azzawi, an associate professor of environmental engineering at Canadian University Dubai and former director of the doctoral program in environmental engineering at the University of Baghdad, cites studies showing that children’s leukemia cases increased by 60 percent between 1990 and 1997 and that birth defects tripled between 1990 and 1998 in Basra, Iraq.
The US Air Force bombed Basra after Saddam Hussein’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait. Al-Azzawi reported that depleted uranium used during this conflict is responsible for the rise in cancer and birth defects in the area.
Depleted uranium is one of the most widely discussed contaminants in relation to birth defects. The World Health Organization released a report in 2003 titled “Potential Impact of Conflict on Health in Iraq,” which suggested that depleted uranium might be related to reports of increased cancers, birth defects, reproductive health problems, and renal diseases in the Iraqi population since 2003.
The Middle East Research and Information Project (MERIP) reported that depleted uranium may be among the causes of a massive spike in birth defects among children in Falluja, which US forces bombed heavily during battles with insurgents in April and November 2004.
MERIP noted that the Falluja Hospital’s birth defects Facebook page, where medical staff cataloged cases, revealed numerous different congenital anomalies. Babies in Falluja are regularly born with hydrocephaly, cleft palates, tumors, elongated heads, overgrown limbs, short limbs, and malformed ears, noses, and spines.
Serbia has accused NATO of using depleted uranium in airstrikes on Belgrade during the 1999 NATO invasion of former Yugoslavia. Serbian Health Minister Daniča Grujičić, a renowned neurosurgeon who co-authored a book titled The Truth About the Aftermath of the 1999 Bombing of Serbia, revealed that although NATO never admitted to having bombed Serbia with depleted uranium warheads, cancer incidence and mortality rates in the country, as well as in neighboring Hungary and Croatia, are on the rise even after 25 years.
“We and our neighbors—the Croats and the Hungarians—have been rotating for years at the top of mortality rates of oncological diseases in Europe,” the health minister said on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in March this year. “Thus, according to ECIS [European Cancer Information System] data for 2020, Serbia was in first place with an index of 150.6 [cancer deaths] per 100,000, while the European average was 108.7 points. We have tumors of respiratory systems, mammary glands, central nervous systems, thyroids, circulatory and digestive systems leading in terms of mortality.”
(The Cradle) with Orinoco Tribune content
