Used medical equipment has been found ashore in Mansouri, Tyre. Upon their discovery, it was noticed that the used needles, IV bags, medicinal drugs, and other medical wastes bore Hebrew labels, which indicated that they originated from Israel.
“The drugs are not included in the Health Ministry’s regulations for medicines entering Lebanon,” an activist told Lebanon Debate, further affirming that the wastes came from abroad.
The appearance of such hazardous wastes on Lebanese coasts is an Israeli attack on Lebanese sovereignty. After being collected, the wastes were handed to the Lebanese Army Intelligence to be further inspected.
On his part, Mayor of Tyre Hassan Dbouk said that the incident “is a serious matter” because of the medical, and thus hazardous, nature of the remains.
He explained to Annahar that the direction of the wind is what caused the wastes to end up in Lebanese waters, and ultimately on the shore of Mansouri in the south.
Furthermore, Dbouk called on the Lebanese government to take action and “follow up with the concerned authorities and the UNIFIL forces.”
This is not the first time such wastes show up in Lebanese waters. Another activist, Mona Al-Khalil, told the same newspaper that a week ago, “seawater was dumping much Israeli medical waste onto the Lebanese coast.”
Moreover, Al-Khalil maintained that over the past years, with the assistance of many activists, she managed to collect large quantities of Israeli waste. Notably, the Israeli wastes that were discovered recently were not all medical.
Earlier this year, in the middle of January, the Lebanese Diving Center announced that it found “large quantities of waste in the sea [near] Adloun, in southern Lebanon, carry Hebrew writings.”
It labeled the occurrence “an international environmental crime” and attested that the wastes carried “very serious repercussions on the Lebanese marine environment.”
Needless to say, this serious infringement on Lebanese sovereignty must be met with the proper actions from the new Lebanese government and its concerned officials; namely the Ministers of Environment, Health, and Foreign Affairs.
