Israeli airstrikes are causing a dangerous ‘smog soup’ in Beirut

Experts in Lebanon have told The New Arab they are concerned about the impact of Israeli airstrikes on Beirut’s air quality, with near-daily explosions in residential neighbourhoods triggering large fires and emitting potentially harmful chemicals.

Residents say they are worried about possible negative health impacts from fumes that linger in the air for hours after Israeli airstrikes and leave black-coloured dust on balconies.

All this has exacerbated living conditions in an already polluted and densely populated city, as the Israeli military drop missiles Beirut, home to some one million people, since it expanded the conflict with Hezbollah into a major ground and air campaign on 23 September.

Hezbollah, the Iran-aligned Shia political and armed group, has been firing rockets at Israel since 8 October 2023 in support of Hamas in Gaza, while Lebanon has been subjected to over 11,000 Israeli attacks since then, according to government figures.

Smell of burning

Strikes against Beirut have been concentrated in the city’s southern suburbs, known locally as Dahiyeh. Israel’s heavy warheads have demolished whole apartment blocks and sparked fires that have spread into surrounding streets and cindered for hours.

Beirut’s compact size means residents across the city have felt the impact, whether by being kept awake by the pounding of the strikes or breathing thick, smokey air the next day.

“You wake up and you see the fire that started in the middle of the night continues all the way to the early hours of the morning, and then you see this white haze over Beirut,” Dr Najat Saliba, an atmospheric chemist at the American University of Beirut (AUB), told The New Arab.

“Sometimes it’s white, sometimes it’s black, depending on what is burning the night before,” Saliba said.

The professor, who also sits as an independent MP, said that in recent days people have been finding black dirt on their balconies and suffering from stinging eyes. Even from Saliba’s apartment in Achrafieh, around two kilometres away from Dahiyeh, she can smell the fumes after a particularly heavy night of strikes.

History of poor air

For decades, Beirut has suffered from poor air quality from congested traffic and the long term and widespread use of diesel generators as a band aid to the country’s broken national grid.

With urban areas in Lebanon routinely exceeding World Health Organization (WHO) recommended levels, Saliba runs AUB’s MSFEA Air Pollution Observatory that monitors pollutant levels in Beirut.

In April, new research by the laboratory found that the level of carcinogenic pollutants in the air had doubled over the past five years, leading to a higher risk of developing cancer.

Now, the explosive munitions detonating in the heart of the city are adding to a cacophony of toxins in the air.

Saliba said she is not aware of anybody currently assessing the ramifications for the city’s air quality, despite its seriousness for public health.

The uncertainty of what chemicals are being released, whether from the ammunition or from the buildings burning as a consequence, have left people anxious.

Saliba, who is a well-known expert on air pollution, said she receives “almost one call per day from people who are really worried about the smoke and are aware of air pollution”.

Last Saturday night, Israel launched multiple strikes on Dahiyeh that set homes and shops on fire. By Sunday morning, a cloud of smoke hung over the city.

Lebanese journalist Kim Ghattas wrote on social media site X on Sunday: “Unbreathable air in the city from air strikes. Forest fires in the mountains. This country is literally in the fog of war.”

Saliba said that the medley of materials typically found in homes, such as wood treatment chemicals, paints, cleaning materials, can all emit harmful emissions.

“All of these chemicals are interrelated and are interacting with the fire and what you see in the morning is basically a soup of all of these together,” she said.

There are proven links between these anthropogenic emissions and the cause of serious health problems, such as lung or cardiovascular diseases, Saliba explained.

Heavy warheads

There are fears that Israel’s use of so-called ‘bunker buster’ bombs which can penetrate dozens of metres underground – suspected to have been used in the strike that killed Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah – could be filled with depleted uranium.

The Syndicate of Chemists in Lebanon recently warned that the use of these weapons in densely populated areas “causes many diseases, especially when inhaled”.

Satellite imagery analysis assessed by the BBC showed that more than 3,600 buildings across Lebanon were damaged or destroyed in the first two weeks of October.  

In one recent Israeli strike on the city, captured on camera, a warhead can be seen plummeting towards a large residential building, rapidly detonating on impact and bringing an entire apartment block down and pushing huge billows of dust and smoke into the sky.

Experts noted that the weapon appeared to be a smart or guided bomb likely to carry a 2,000 pound warhead, amongst the largest of its kind.

British charity The Conflict and Environment Observatory says that explosive ammunition in urban settings has harmful impacts for pollution levels. It notes that “typical contaminants” of concern, whether from weapons or buildings, include “metals like lead and chromium, fuel oils, PCBs, fire retardants, explosives and asbestos”.

Other environmental researchers note that the destruction of infrastructure from wars can take years to clear, and leave harmful debris in areas for long periods, risking the contamination of water supplies and the wider environment.

For Saliba, who has spent 20 years tracking the air quality in the city, the current pollution crisis is just the latest disaster for a country which has never had the luxury of prioritising a healthy environment due to repeated conflicts.

“It is very unfortunate that we keep losing our environment and our surroundings because we’re putting it as a second or third priority, and we have so many other priorities to really take care of,” she said.