The government ordered an investigation on Thursday into Israel’s alleged use of depleted-uranium (DU) ammunition during its occupation of Lebanon. If conclusive evidence emerges that the Israelis used DU weapons, it will be added to the list of grievances that forms the basis of a pending lawsuit to win reparations from Israel.
The Health and Environment ministries and the National Council for Scientific Research, in coordination with the army, have been charged to investigate allegations that the Israeli Army fired DU shells in the South, Information Minister Ghazi Aridi said after Thursday’s Cabinet meeting.
Michel Tueni, the government-appointed lawyer handling the lawsuit, said preliminary investigations suggest there is substance to speculation that DU ammunition was used in the South.
But “the presence of depleted uranium will definitely be taken into account in the suit, pending the final investigation,” he told The Daily Star. “It’s a very important part and will require modifying the suit.” Tueni said he had raised the issue in Lebanon following the outcry in Europe over the use of DU rounds during NATO’s 1999 campaign in Kosovo and the 1991 Gulf War against Iraq.
According to the US-based International Action Center, an anti-war group, at least 272 tons of DU and uranium dust were left around Iraq, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia by US and British forces during the Gulf War. A symposium in Baghdad in December 1998 found higher rates of childhood leukemia and other cancers in people living around Basra, and attributed this to DU contamination.
Steffan de Mistura, the UN’s south Lebanon coordinator, said Thursday that the reported use of DU ammunition by Israel should be proven and publicized. Mistura, who met Speaker Nabih Berri, added that a “scientific analysis” should be conducted and its results compared with the findings in other countries.
British Ambassador Richard Kinchen told Berri that his government was willing to provide any “information or assistance” for an investigation.
The Israeli Army admitted last week for the first time that it has made use of DU shells for years, according to Israel’s Yediot Ahronot newspaper. Israel’s Maariv daily has reported that Arab-Israeli MP Issam Makhoul has called for an urgent meeting of the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee to discuss the “use of depleted uranium against south Lebanon and the occupied Palestinian territories.”
A 1995 report from the US Army Environmental Policy Institute asserts that Israel is one of the countries with DU munitions in its arsenal. Given Israel’s own nuclear program and well-developed military industry, it is also suspected of manufacturing its own DU ammunition.
An Israeli military spokesman has admitted that DU weapons were used by its navy against“marine targets” but had stopped using the ammunition about 18 months ago. On warships, DU ammunition is generally used by rapid-firing gatling guns, a defensive weapon against sea-skimming anti-ship missiles. UNIFIL spokesman Timur Goksel said the peacekeeping force had no evidence of DU weapons having been fired in the South.
“We couldn’t tell. We’re talking of tens of thousands of rounds fired from the ground, the sea and the air. It’s not something we could possibly tell without a proper scientific investigation,” he said.
He added, however, that the low-intensity conflict fought in the South precluded the regular use of DU ammunition. Hizbullah’s lightly armed fighters adopted hit-and-run guerrilla tactics and had no need for armored vehicles.
But Goksel admitted that it was possible the Israelis made sporadic use of DU ammunition. “South Lebanon has been a weapons laboratory for a long time,” he said.
The occupation zone allowed the Israeli Army to test-fire various weapons systems and conduct training exercises with virtual impunity.
Israeli air crews practiced their skills against wadis and buildings in the South with almost no risk of being shot down. Israel’s Spike anti-tank missile was secretly tested in the South for 16 months from the beginning of 1998.
One Lebanese civilian was killed and at least four others wounded before the Israeli Army declassified the weapon and placed it on the international arms market.
Christopher Foss of London-based Jane’s Defense Weekly said that there was little reason for the Israelis to have used DU ammunition in the South. He said that Israel’s Merkava tanks were capable of firing DU shells but that the expensive ammunition was impractical against the targets normally found in the battlefields of the South, such as buildings or squads of resistance fighters.
“A DU round would go in one side of the building and out the other,” Foss explained. “It wouldn’t demolish the building, just punch a hole in it. It would have no effect against a group of people either.” One of the most effective DU-firing anti-armor platforms is the US Air Force’s A-10 Thunderbolt II, a “tank-busting” warplane equipped with 30mm gatling guns.
Israel has no A-10s but the AH-64 Apache helicopter gunship, which is equipped with a 30mm machine gun, is in service with the Israelis and has been used regularly to attack targets in Lebanon. The International Action Center has claimed that the Apache’s 30mm cannon can fire DU rounds. But Foss disagreed.
“I think the Apache has different ammunition. Its primary weapon (against tanks) is the Hellfire missile,” he said.
The 30mm single-barreled chain gun slung beneath the nose of the Apache is designed to fire three different types of bullet: a high-explosive dual-purpose round, a high-explosive incendiary round, and a target-practice round. None of them are tipped with DU.
DS
19/01/01