Between October 2023 and October 2024, Israel carried out 195 white phosphorus strikes across southern Lebanon, including in populated areas, researcher Ahmad Baydoun reported. The last recorded attacks occurred on 31 October 2024 in Al Khiam. Human Rights Watch says using airburst white phosphorus in populated areas violates international humanitarian law.

The incendiary chemical has inflicted severe harm on civilians, causing painful burns, respiratory injuries, and displacement. Amnesty International warns that burns covering as little as 10 percent of the body can be fatal. “Residents are concerned about the extreme toxicity of white phosphorus fumes and solid remnants,” says environmental researcher at the American University of Beirut, Abbas Baalbaki. “White phosphorus is a highly reactive substance that even reacts with oxygen in the air. It ignites by itself at low temperatures.”

As a result, Israel’s use of white phosphorus bombs has ignited fires all around south Lebanon, including houses, buildings, and land areas belonging to farmers, burning at least 918 hectares and preventing 90 per cent of livestock farmers from accessing their lands, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the Lebanese Ministry of Agriculture. “It has destroyed vast expanses of forested land, disturbing the ecosystem balance in all these regions,” says Dr Rami Zurayk, a professor of Ecosystem Management and researcher at the American University of Beirut.

The impacts of white phosphorus have raised concerns about its effects on the environment, including fears of soil and crop contamination, which has led people to avoid buying products from the south, according to Joseph Bechara, a........

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