Lebanon - Report: Israel Used Uranium Bombs

Lebanon - A media report is claiming that Israel used uranium-based munitions, including uranium-tipped bunker-buster bombs, during its war against Hizbullah in Lebanon this summer. According to the report in a British newspaper, scientists found two soil samples thrown up by Israeli heavy or guided bombs that showed "elevated radiation signatures."

"Scientific evidence gathered from at least two bomb craters in Khiam and At-Tiri, the scene of fierce fighting between Hizbullah guerrillas and Israeli troops last July and August suggests that uranium-based munitions may now also be included in Israel's weapons inventory - and were used against targets in Lebanon," it said. "The weapon was [either] some novel small experimental nuclear fission device or other experimental weapon (e.g., a thermobaric weapon) based on the high temperature of a uranium oxidation flash ...[or it] was a bunker-busting conventional uranium penetrator weapon employing enriched uranium rather than depleted uranium," Dr. Chris Busby, the British Scientific Secretary of the European Committee on Radiation Risk, said.
A photograph of the explosion of the first bomb shows large clouds of black smoke that might result from burning uranium.

The Israeli military denied the report by the British newspaper. "The military Spokesman's Office wants to make it clear that no munitions containing uranium were used in the war in Lebanon," an Israeli military spokesman said.