Fear and uncertainty spread across social media after Israel bombed Beirut with US-made bunker-buster bombs in early October 2024. A well-known Lebanese newspaper article hinted at the use of depleted uranium (DU), while a group of chemists also raised alarms over the use of DU in these attacks. Although the use of DU can be excluded in the case of this attack on Beirut, as there aren’t any known types of these bombs that contain DU, the incident highlights the longstanding problem with using nuclear waste in conventional munitions and the associated risks to public health. This autumn, the UN General Assembly will once again vote on a resolution titled “Effects of the use of armaments and ammunitions containing depleted uranium,” which calls for a precautionary approach to DU, transparency over its use, and the implementation of clean-up efforts.
Perils of DU Usage
Depleted uranium is a dense heavy metal made out of nuclear waste and is used in armoured-piercing munitions due to its high kinetic energy and pyrophoric effects. When it hits the armour, the projectile is self-sharpening, enhancing its penetrating capacity, and creates a fine dust of toxic heavy metal that emits low-level radiation. Shrapnel and DU remnants can end up in the soil, eroding and contaminating the local environment. The dust often remains in the destroyed tanks and can expose people to DU when resuspended dust is inhaled, ingested, or enters wounds. There is no safe threshold for DU exposure; hence, experts call for a precautionary approach to DU. Since it is classified as low-level radioactive waste, its use is heavily regulated by states during peacetime to prevent civilian exposure. This underscores the absurdity of DU-using states refusing to take responsibility for civilian concerns when DU is widely used in combat and left lingering in populated areas for years.
Since its disputed use in various Gulf Wars in Iraq, the Balkans, and recently in Syria and Ukraine, DU has been contested by human rights groups, peace organisations, affected communities, medical experts, states, and regional parliaments. Since 2007, the United Nations has voted on a bi-annual resolutions concerning depleted uranium, which, among other things, calls for a precautionary approach to these munitions, in line with recommendations from the UN Environment Programme.

Depleted uranium is associated with radiation exposure and linked diseases, particularly among exposed military veterans. While proponents of DU weapons often cite the absence of proven health effects based on independent studies by UN agencies, they conveniently overlook the fact that no comprehensive research has ever been conducted on exposed civilians. This is largely because militaries firing DU munitions often fail to release timely targeting data that necessary for proper research and monitoring of public health in affected communities. What remains are in vitro and in vivo studies that raise concerns over both the genotoxic effects of DU as a heavy metal and the risks of the so-called bystander effect due to its radioactivity. All these studies provide sufficient warning signals that there is no acceptable safe threshold for DU exposure.
During PAX’s work in countries where DU was used, such as Iraq and Syria, we learned that the use of DU sparked fear among communities due to the uncertainty of exposure and perceived radiation risks, which aggravated their concerns. These fears were often compounded by the collapse of the healthcare system, which was unable to conduct proper health monitoring and awareness raising.
Ambiguity over DU-Related Health Risks
This ambiguity regarding the health risks has two sides, both of which can be misused. On one hand, the absence of a clear correlation between exposure to DU and health effects from field studies is used as an argument to claim there are no real dangers, leading to the overlooking of health issues in discussions about DU use. As noted earlier, the willful neglect by states to conduct research among affected populations-as was the case in Iraq, where the US blocked health surveys by the WHO-combined with known toxic and radiological risks from laboratory studies that demonstrate various carcinogenic and genotoxic risks from DU exposure, makes a precautionary approach necessary.
At the same time, it is also important not to overstate the risks or unnecessarily spread fear, which can be easily provoked when anything related to radiation is mentioned. This often results in scaremongering, with a wide range of health issues, such as alleged increases in congenital birth defects, being attributed to DU exposure. Vivid images of babies with massive tumors quickly spread and become imprinted in the minds of civilians struggling with their health in (post-)conflict areas. In reality, the likelihood of civilians actually being exposed to DU and developing health problems is often low, primarily concerning vulnerable groups, such as scrap metal collectors, children playing on vehicles destroyed with DU, and people handling building materials in areas where DU was used. Thus, discussing DU often feels like walking a tightrope, balancing risks, perceptions, and common sense.
Lastly, one of the major culprits in this debate is the military. States that used DU in Iraq and Syria failed to take responsibility by not sharing targeting coordinates with the UN, humanitarian deminers, and local authorities in a timely manner, which could have supported rapid clean-up efforts and prevented civilian exposure. They did not provide proper training and equipment to relevant authorities for DU remediation or to raise awareness in communities. Particularly in Iraq, this lack of information, combined with anti-US sentiments, often fueled concerns and led to the politicisation of the problem.
Blighted Battlefields in Ukraine
A precautionary approach to preventing public health and environmental concerns is more relevant than ever, as DU continues to be deployed on the battlefield. Last year, the United States announced it would provide 120mm M829 DU armour-piercing fin-stabilised discarding sabot (APFSDS) munitions operated by the M1A1 Abrams tank to Ukraine. There are strong indications that the US sent the 25mm M911 DU armour-piercing munitions used by the Bradley Armored Fighting Vehicle, which it had donated to Ukraine, although this has not yet been confirmed. The United Kingdom is also supplying thousands of 120mm CHARM 2 DU rounds for the Challenger tanks provided to the Ukrainian army. Russia is presumably using various types of DU rounds in its tanks on the battlefield, including the 125mm BM-32 DU munition, according to warnings given to mine clearance operators in the field.
The use of DU in Ukraine requires meticulous documentation of target coordinates to facilitate clean-up and remediation efforts, along with dedicated financial resources and equipment to detect radiation. Awareness-raising campaigns for affected communities are also essential to prevent exposure to DU dust and fragments. The updated Mine Action Standards on DU can be very useful for awareness and risk education. Soldiers involved in incidents or exposed civilians would need medical monitoring in case they have DU shrapnel in their bodies or if they inhaled DU dust. In 2012, PAX produced an analysis of military manuals for protecting troops against DU exposure, and its conclusions remain relevant today.

Despite US think tanks praising the export of DU to Ukraine, often repeating the tired adage of it being a ‘silver bullet’ and the most effective anti-tank munition in existence, facts from the battlefield suggest otherwise. The majority of Iraqi tanks in the Gulf War were destroyed by missiles, not DU, while most PGU-14 DU rounds were fired by the A-10 tankbuster at buildings, trenches, and troops rather than against tanks and armoured vehicles, as shown by PAX analysis based on US targeting data. The war in Ukraine has also demonstrated how modern warfare and new technologies have rendered DU obsolete. Modern tungsten rounds are highly effective against aging Russian tanks, while in general, most tanks in Ukraine are currently destroyed by (portable) anti-tank missiles, drones, and other weapons such as artillery strikes. Therefore, the claimed necessity of DU is no longer a convincing argument and should be discarded as obsolete Cold War military thinking.
Ukraine already faces a myriad of conflict-pollution issues that pose immediate and long-term risks to public health and the environment. The use of DU will only add another unnecessary layer of complexity to assessment, clean-up, and remediation efforts, with no proven added military value in return. NATO partners have sufficient tungsten rounds in their stockpiles to be used in the various tanks donated to the Ukrainian army. It remains unlikely that DU usage will be properly documented amid the chaos of the battlefield, which can fuel later health concerns among exposed military personnel and civilians in affected areas.


Preventing History from Repeating Itself
The ongoing discourse surrounding DU underscores the complexity of conflict pollution and the necessity of addressing toxic remnants of war within a broader context. While the cause-and-effect relationship between DU and health effects may offer a simplified narrative that is easily grasped, it also serves as a convenient mechanism for assigning blame. This tendency to oversimplify can obscure the more nuanced realities of conflict pollution. At the same time, there should be no justification for using radioactive waste in conventional munitions, particularly when the safe threshold for exposure remains unknown.
Returning to the incident in Beirut, we can see how limited information and rumors are fueling health concerns. To clarify: there are no facts indicating that DU is used in conventional bombs, despite what some bloggers claim. In the past, the US debated using DU in nuclear weapons for penetrating the soil, but no design for conventional bunker-buster bombs exists. Lebanon is not new to these claims, as rumors of Israel using DU in the 2006 war in Beirut led to the UN Environment Program taking soil samples and conducting tests, which concluded that “no DU shrapnel or other radioactive residue was found and the analysis showed no enriched uranium or higher than natural uranium content in any of the samples.” Yet the psychological impact of these rumors is often more immediate and profound than the facts, aggravating the distress of an already vulnerable population.
The only way to prevent similar situations from recurring is to enforce a comprehensive ban on depleted uranium in conventional weapons. We also call upon states to support the UN General Assembly Resolution on the effects of the use of armaments and ammunitions containing depleted uranium, to better protect people and the environment from the devastating effects of armed conflict.