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Israel Abandons Civilian Shielding in Strikes Across Lebanon

Paramedics at the site of a Tuesday night Israeli strike in Ain al-Hilweh camp in Sidon (Reuters)
Paramedics at the site of a Tuesday night Israeli strike in Ain al-Hilweh camp in Sidon (Reuters)
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Israel Abandons Civilian Shielding in Strikes Across Lebanon

Paramedics at the site of a Tuesday night Israeli strike in Ain al-Hilweh camp in Sidon (Reuters)
Paramedics at the site of a Tuesday night Israeli strike in Ain al-Hilweh camp in Sidon (Reuters)

Israeli attacks in southern Lebanon widened in recent hours from calculated strikes on alleged military sites to heavy bombardment inside crowded civilian areas, signaling what appears to be Israel’s abandonment of the principle of shielding civilians from its operations.

After an airstrike late on Tuesday on the Ain al-Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp east of Sidon, another Israeli strike hit the border town of Tayrī on Wednesday, hitting a bus carrying students. The attacks underscored that civilians are no longer being spared in what Lebanese officials described as a new Israeli escalation beyond traditional confrontation zones.

Ain Al-Hilweh

Late on Tuesday, Israeli warplanes struck a civilian complex that included a sports field, a swimming pool, and a parking area near the Khaled bin al-Walid Mosque at the western entrance of Ain al-Hilweh. The strike killed thirteen people and wounded dozens.

Israel said it had targeted a Hamas training compound. Hamas said the location was a field frequented by youngsters and described the strike as a massacre against civilians.

A general strike swept through the camp on Wednesday in protest at what residents called a massacre. Public and private schools in Sidon closed their doors in mourning for the victims.

Al-Tayri

One person was killed and eleven wounded in the Israeli strike on a car in Al-Tayri, the National News Agency said. A school bus happened to be passing behind the targeted vehicle, injuring several students and the driver.

The Public Health Ministry’s emergency operations center said the strike in Al-Tayri in the Bint Jbeil district caused the death of one civilian and wounded eleven others.

Berri and the Lebanese position

Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri called for an urgent session of the United Nations Security Council and urged the body to affirm Lebanese rights and condemn what he said were Israeli violations that included targeting civilians and annexing land.

Commenting on the strike on Al-Tayri, which wounded university and school students, Berri said Israel was once again committing crimes against civilians, children, and students. He said Israel was acting above accountability while Lebanon, which he said remained committed to Security Council resolution 1701 and the November 2024 cessation of hostilities agreement, was instead facing criticism and blame.

Hezbollah and the national duty

Hezbollah condemned what it called the horrific massacre in Ain al-Hilweh. The group said Lebanese state institutions should recognize that showing any flexibility, weakness, or submission only encouraged Israel to be more ferocious and reckless. Hezbollah said limited reactions that fell short of the scale of Israeli attacks would only invite further assaults and massacres.

The group said national duty required a firm and unified stance to confront Israel’s actions, deter its aggression through all possible means, and hold on to the elements of strength Lebanon possesses, describing them as the only guarantee for stopping Israeli plans and protecting Lebanon’s sovereignty and security.

A daily scene

Lebanese MP Abdul Rahman Bizri said the recent Israeli attacks in Ain al-Hilweh and in the south, including the strike on the bus carrying students, showed a dangerous expansion in strikes on civilians. He said Israel was acting with complete disregard for civilian life, particularly that of children, and for minimum humanitarian norms.

Bizri told Asharq Al-Awsat the strike on Ain al-Hilweh marked a serious turning point and a real massacre.

He said the camp was one of Lebanon’s largest and most sensitive Palestinian camps and had stayed away from cross-border military activity for years. He said the strike carried multiple messages directed at the Lebanese state, Palestinian factions, and possibly all Lebanese that the coming period could be more difficult.

He said the bus attack showed the same pattern. He said these strikes were being carried out without oversight or accountability and without any serious international stance capable of stopping them. Civilian casualties were becoming a near-daily scene, he said, due to repeated attacks.

Bizri said the strikes were a clear violation of Lebanese sovereignty and part of an attempt to increase tensions. He said international mechanisms were no longer capable of restraining Israel or mitigating the damage.

He said the possibility of the attacks widening was high and that recent events pointed to a harsher and more dangerous trajectory. He urged strengthening Lebanon’s internal front and intensifying contacts with Arab and international partners to create effective pressure on Israel to halt its attacks.

Multi-level pressure

Military experts see deeper messages behind the strikes.

Retired Brigadier General Naji Malaeb said the attack on Ain al-Hilweh near a mosque and without any regard for civilian life, and with the level of force that killed thirteen people, carried multiple signals.

He said the first message was a direct response to Hamas’ position following the UN Security Council’s approval of US President Donald Trump’s plan.

He said Hamas had not rejected the plan entirely but had rejected it conditionally, insisting it would only hand over its weapons to a Palestinian authority formed to govern Gaza. He said media reports that Hamas had rejected the plan outright gave Israel a pretext to attack a Palestinian camp.

Malaeb said there was another dimension tied to Israel’s pattern in the West Bank and Gaza, where it had repeatedly targeted camps such as Jabalia and others in an apparent bid to inflict maximum casualties and strike refugee communities originally displaced by Israel.

He said Ain al-Hilweh fit into this pattern, with Israel viewing camps as environments that must be weakened.

He said the strike also carried a message to the Lebanese authorities that weapons inside the camps remained active and that trained cells and fighters were still present, countering claims that these weapons had lost their relevance.

He said this message aligned with US pressure on Lebanon, which he said was evident in the recent cancellation of the army commander’s visit to the United States.

Commenting on the strike near Al-Tayri, which damaged the bus carrying students, Malaeb said it was part of psychological and moral pressure on southern communities and fell within a broader pattern of targeting infrastructure, logistics, and safe housing as a form of advanced pressure.

He said the escalation coincided with requests by the international mechanism committee for the Lebanese army to enter and search homes in the south, adding that the multi-level pressure reflected a new phase in Israel’s escalation.

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Securing Iran’s Enriched Uranium by Force Would Be Risky and Complex, Experts Say

This image from an Airbus Defense and Space's Pléiades Neo satellite shows a truck in the upper left-hand corner that analysts believe was carrying highly enriched uranium to a tunnel in the compound of the Isfahan Nuclear Technology Center, in Isfahan, Iran, June 9, 2025. (Airbus Defense and Space© via AP)
This image from an Airbus Defense and Space's Pléiades Neo satellite shows a truck in the upper left-hand corner that analysts believe was carrying highly enriched uranium to a tunnel in the compound of the Isfahan Nuclear Technology Center, in Isfahan, Iran, June 9, 2025. (Airbus Defense and Space© via AP)
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Securing Iran’s Enriched Uranium by Force Would Be Risky and Complex, Experts Say

This image from an Airbus Defense and Space's Pléiades Neo satellite shows a truck in the upper left-hand corner that analysts believe was carrying highly enriched uranium to a tunnel in the compound of the Isfahan Nuclear Technology Center, in Isfahan, Iran, June 9, 2025. (Airbus Defense and Space© via AP)
This image from an Airbus Defense and Space's Pléiades Neo satellite shows a truck in the upper left-hand corner that analysts believe was carrying highly enriched uranium to a tunnel in the compound of the Isfahan Nuclear Technology Center, in Isfahan, Iran, June 9, 2025. (Airbus Defense and Space© via AP)

Should the US decide to send in military forces to secure Iran’s uranium stockpile, it would be a complex, risky and lengthy operation, fraught with radiation and chemical dangers, according to experts and former government officials.

US President Donald Trump has offered shifting reasons for the war in Iran but has consistently said a primary objective is ensuring the country will "never have a nuclear weapon." Less clear is how far he is willing to go to seize Iran’s nuclear material.

Given the risks of inserting as many as 1,000 specially trained forces into a war zone to remove the stockpile, another option would be a negotiated settlement with Iran that would allow the material to be surrendered and secured without using force.

Iran has 440.9 kilograms (972 pounds) of uranium that is enriched up to 60% purity, a short, technical step from weapons-grade levels of 90%, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN's nuclear watchdog agency.

That stockpile could allow Iran to build as many as 10 nuclear bombs, should it decide to weaponize its program, IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi told The Associated Press last year. He added it doesn’t mean Iran has such a weapon.

Iran long has insisted its program is peaceful, but the IAEA and Western nations say Tehran had an organized nuclear weapons program up until 2003.

Nuclear material is probably stored in tunnels

IAEA inspectors have not been able to verify the near weapons-grade uranium since June 2025, when Israeli and American strikes greatly weakened Iran’s air defenses, military leadership and nuclear program. The lack of inspections has made it difficult to know exactly where it is located.

Grossi has said that the IAEA believes a stockpile of roughly 200 kilograms (about 440 pounds) of highly enriched uranium is stored in tunnels at Iran’s nuclear complex outside of Isfahan. The site was mainly known for producing the uranium gas that is fed into centrifuges to be spun and purified.

Additional quantities are believed to be at the Natanz nuclear site and lesser amounts may be stored at a facility in Fordo, he has said.

It's unclear whether additional quantities could be elsewhere.

US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard told a House hearing March 19 that the US intelligence community has "high confidence" that it knows the location of Iran’s highly enriched uranium stockpiles.

Radiation and chemical risks

Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium fits into canisters each weighing about 50 kilograms (110 pounds) when full. The material is in the form of uranium hexafluoride gas. Estimates on the number of canisters range from 26 to about twice that number, depending on how full each cylinder is.

The canisters carrying the highly enriched uranium are "pretty robust" and are designed for storage and transport, said David Albright, a former nuclear weapons inspector in Iraq and founder of the nonprofit Institute for Science and International Security in Washington.

But he warned that "safety issues become paramount" should the canisters be damaged — for example, due to airstrikes — allowing moisture to get inside.

In such a scenario, there would be a hazard from fluorine, a highly toxic chemical that is corrosive to skin, eyes and lungs. Anyone entering the tunnels seeking to retrieve the canisters "would have to wear hazmat suits," Albright said.

It also would be necessary to maintain distance between the various canisters in order to avoid a self-sustaining critical nuclear reaction that would lead to "a large amount of radiation," he said.

To avoid such a radiological accident, the canisters would have to be placed in containers that create space between them during transport, he said.

Albright said that the preferred option for dealing with the uranium would be to remove it from Iran in special military planes and then "downblend" it — mix it with lower-enriched materials to bring it to levels suitable for civilian use.

Downblending the material inside Iran probably is not feasible, given that the infrastructure needed for the process may not be intact due to the war, he added.

Darya Dolzikova, senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, agreed.

Downblending the material inside Iran is "probably not the most likely option just because it’s a very complicated and long process that requires specialized equipment," she said.

Risks for ground forces

Securing Iran's nuclear material with ground troops would be a "very complex and high-risk military operation," said Christine E. Wormuth, who was secretary of the Army under former US President Joe Biden.

That's because the material is probably at multiple sites and the undertaking would "probably take casualties," added Wormuth, now president and CEO of the Washington-based Nuclear Threat Initiative.

The scale and scope of an operation at Isfahan alone would easily require 1,000 military personnel, she said.

Given that tunnel entrances are probably buried under rubble, it would be necessary for helicopters to fly in heavy equipment, such as excavators, and US forces might even have to build an airstrip nearby to land all the equipment and troops, Wormuth said.

She said special forces, including perhaps the 75th Ranger Regiment, would have to work "in tandem" with nuclear experts who would look underground for the canisters, adding that the special forces would likely set up a security perimeter in case of potential attacks.

Wormuth said the Nuclear Disablement Teams under the 20th Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear, Explosives Command would be one possible unit that could be employed in such an operation.

"The Iranians have thought this through, I’m sure, and are going to try to make it as difficult as possible to do this in an expeditious way," she said. "So I would imagine it will be a pretty painstaking effort to go underground, get oriented, try to discern ... which ones are the real canisters, which ones may be decoys, to try to avoid booby traps."

A negotiated solution

The best option would be "to have an agreement with the (Iranian) government to remove all of that material," said Scott Roecker, former director of the Office of Nuclear Material Removal at the National Nuclear Security Administration, a semiautonomous agency within the US Department of Energy.

A similar mission occurred in 1994 when the US, in partnership with the government of Kazakhstan, secretly transported 600 kilograms (about 1,322 pounds) of weapons-grade uranium from the former Soviet republic in an operation dubbed "Project Sapphire." The material was left over from the USSR's nuclear program.

Roecker, now vice president for the Nuclear Materials Security Program at the Nuclear Threat Initiative, said the Department of Energy's Mobile Packaging Unit was built from the experience in Kazakhstan. It has safely removed nuclear material from several countries, including from Georgia in 1998 and from Iraq in 2004, 2007 and 2008.

The unit consists of technical experts and specialized equipment that can be deployed anywhere to safely remove nuclear material, and Roecker said it would be ideally positioned to remove the uranium under a negotiated deal with Iran. Tehran remains suspicious of Washington, which under Trump withdrew from a nuclear agreement and has twice attacked during high-level negotiations.

Under a negotiated solution, IAEA inspectors also could be part of a mission. "We are considering these options, of course," the IAEA's Grossi said March 22 on CBS' "Face the Nation" when asked about such a scenario.

Iran has "a contractual obligation to allow inspectors in," he added. "Of course, there’s common sense. Nothing can happen while bombs are falling."

Features

Lebanese Displaced by War Fill Beirut’s Streets, Upending City Life

Members of a family who fled Israeli shelling in southern Lebanon warm themselves by a bonfire next to tents used as shelters in Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday, March 31, 2026. (AP)
Members of a family who fled Israeli shelling in southern Lebanon warm themselves by a bonfire next to tents used as shelters in Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday, March 31, 2026. (AP)
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Lebanese Displaced by War Fill Beirut’s Streets, Upending City Life

Members of a family who fled Israeli shelling in southern Lebanon warm themselves by a bonfire next to tents used as shelters in Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday, March 31, 2026. (AP)
Members of a family who fled Israeli shelling in southern Lebanon warm themselves by a bonfire next to tents used as shelters in Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday, March 31, 2026. (AP)

Beirut is bursting.

It's been a month since Hezbollah fired rockets into Israel after the US-Israeli attack on its patron, Iran, triggering Israeli bombardment of Lebanon and a ground invasion. Since then, more than 1 million people from southern and eastern Lebanon and Beirut's southern suburbs have fled. Many have crammed into the ever-tighter spaces of the country's capital where the bombs have not yet fallen.

Israel's attacks and evacuation orders — unprecedented in scope, covering what humanitarian agencies estimate to be 15% of this tiny country — have emptied villages in south Lebanon and pushed almost the entire population of the southern suburbs into Beirut, shifting the city's center of gravity, reshaping its geography and stirring fears about its future.

A huge tent encampment has sprouted up in the grassy field between a yacht club and nightlife venue, transforming the Beirut waterfront. Some families squat in storefronts, live in mosques and sleep in the cars they drove here, double- and triple-parking convoys on thoroughfares. Others huddle in tents pulled together from sheets of tarp along the curving coastal corniche or around Horsh Beirut, a park of pine trees on the outskirts of an area of the southern suburbs known as Dahieh.

"It's horrid because we feel this tension, that we're not wanted here," said Nour Hussein, who settled at the waterfront in early March after fleeing the first Israeli airstrikes on Dahieh. She watched a stream of well-to-do joggers navigate a maze of tents and soiled mattresses, her three youngest children clambering onto her lap.

"We don’t want to be here," she said. "We have nothing here and nowhere to go."

Experts say this displacement is unprecedented

Waves of displacement have upended this city before, most recently during the 2024 Israel-Hezbollah war. But experts struggle to recall such a dramatic exodus — about 20% of the country’s population, according to government statements — hitting Beirut so fast.

"The scale and intensity of this is just unprecedented," said Dalal Harb, the spokesperson for the United Nations refugee agency in Lebanon. She said the figure of 1 million displaced is almost certainly an undercount because it misses anyone who has not formally registered as displaced with the Ministry of Social Affairs.

The government has converted hundreds of public schools into shelters and pitched tents for displaced families beneath the bleachers of the city's main sports stadium. Charities have scrambled to help, with one refashioning an abandoned slaughterhouse destroyed in Beirut's 2020 port explosion into a dormitory for almost 1,000 displaced people.

But urban researchers note a staggering number of people on the streets compared with past conflicts, making it difficult for ordinary residents to block out the war and the misery it has wrought.

"This is relatively new, that you have so many people spending time in these open spaces, who are very vulnerable, living in very precarious conditions," said Mona Harb, a professor of urban studies at the American University of Beirut. "You have to confront this visually when you’re coming and going to work, to school ... and there are strong, mixed feelings associated with this presence that’s unregulated."

Families say they’ve struggled to find space at government-run shelters in Beirut and would rather brave the elements than travel north to cities where they might find better accommodations but where they have no relatives or connections.

"The further away we go, the more we'll lose hope about finding our way back," said Hawraa Balha, 42, when asked why her family of four was squeezing into the small car they drove from the devastated southern border village of Duhaira rather than sleeping in an available shelter further north. "We don't want to move again."

Residents of the suburbs of Dahieh have largely opted to remain in Beirut. That way, every so often, they can retrieve belongings and check whether their homes are still standing, albeit in furtive dashes under the threat of bombardment. Hussein said her kids grew so desperate for a shower after nearly a month without a bathroom that they rushed home to wash up last week despite the incessant buzz of Israeli drones.

Lebanon's sectarian balance is at risk

The prospect of hundreds of thousands of Shiites on the move has inflamed Lebanese sensitivities about the country’s fragile sectarian balance. Ever since its bloody 15-year civil war, Lebanon has relied on a power-sharing agreement to accommodate the interests of Christians, Shiite Muslims and Sunni Muslims, the country's largest religious groups, which make up roughly equal shares of the population.

"It's generating anxieties in Beirut, where the bulk of the displacement is, that this may cause a significant transformation in the demographic balance within the country, or within certain spaces and cities," said Maha Yahya, director of the Beirut-based Carnegie Middle East Center.

Each day that passes, more tents appear at the waterfront settlement. Children have started to complain of skin rashes. Heavy rainfall recently flooded the grassy lot and seeped into tents, leaving a trail of soggy clothes and sore throats. A fight broke out last week as volunteers arrived to distribute donations.

"We're not used to living like this — we had a house, we had normal lives," said Lina Shamis, 51, warming herself by a fire at the foot of a billboard advertising luxury watches. She, her three adult daughters and their small children set up camp here after heeding Israeli evacuation orders for Dahieh in a panic, carrying almost nothing with them.

"Now the kids are out of school and hungry, and our neighborhood is gone," she said. "All I feel is despair."

With Israel thrusting deeper into Lebanon and threatening to seize Lebanese territory as far as the Litani, a river 20 miles (30 kilometers) north of the Israeli border, the situation of displaced people in Beirut "will be even worse than what we’re seeing now," warned Harb, from the UN refugee agency.

"The needs will continue to increase," she said. "It's an imminent humanitarian catastrophe."

Features

Siege of Balad Base May Prelude ‘Doomsday’ Scenario in Iraq

A US military handout image shows the Balad Air Base in Iraq in 2011.
A US military handout image shows the Balad Air Base in Iraq in 2011.
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Siege of Balad Base May Prelude ‘Doomsday’ Scenario in Iraq

A US military handout image shows the Balad Air Base in Iraq in 2011.
A US military handout image shows the Balad Air Base in Iraq in 2011.

An American contractor responsible for operating Iraq’s F-16 fighter jets has withdrawn its staff from an Iraqi air base after attacks by Iran-aligned factions, leaving Baghdad racing to find replacements before its most advanced aircraft risks becoming “scrap,” officials and sources said.

The attacks cap years of what sources describe as “infiltration and espionage attempts” targeting US technology acquired by Iraq about a decade ago, culminating in what they called a “doomsday scenario” to seize Iraqi military assets.

The Iraqi government had tried to persuade staff from V2X to remain at Balad Air Base despite repeated strikes. A senior Iraqi official said that although the attacks caused no major damage, “the company’s employees insisted on leaving for their own safety.”

According to a foreign contractor, security personnel and employees, the evacuation followed an intense wave of drone attacks and was carried out during a temporary truce to secure what one source described as a “high-risk flight.”

Since the outbreak of war involving the US-Israeli war on Iran, the Balad Air Base has come under attack from three directions, most of which failed to cause significant damage, sources said.

During the first term of President Donald Trump, Iran-aligned groups forced a previous American contractor to leave the same base after the US strike that killed Qassem Soleimani in January 2020.

Dozens of staff from Sallyport were reported to have departed after deadly attacks.

The pattern now appears to be repeating with V2X during Trump’s second term, but in a broader regional war.

Drone attacks strain operations

The first attack in the current escalation occurred on March 2, the third day of the war. Subsequent strikes followed a pattern, often between midnight and early dawn, sometimes involving paired drones.

Local residents filmed smoke rising near the base. A nearby farmer told Asharq Al-Awsat that most drones fell within or just outside the perimeter, close to the security fence.

A security source said around 10 attacks were recorded in the first month of the war, causing no casualties or damage, including to the F-16 fleet.

But the attacks disrupted daily operations. “We had to stay in fortified rooms for hours,” one contractor said, adding that foreign staff feared a repeat of the 2012 US consulate attack in Libya.

Iraqi staff downplayed the threat, saying operations continued as normal.

Evacuation under truce

Baghdad’s efforts to retain the American team failed. The official said the logistical support program for the F-16s was essential to keeping Iraq’s fighter squadron operational, but the staff chose to leave.

Sources said dozens of foreign personnel were evacuated overnight aboard a military C-130 aircraft to a neighboring country, in coordination with the US military. The operation was timed with a brief truce in the final week of March.

Some advisers had already withdrawn in late February, citing early warnings of rising risks.

V2X did not respond to requests for comment. A New York Stock Exchange filing shows its contract was renewed in June 2025 with an initial value of $118 million.

The base now lacks a specialized team to operate Iraq’s F-16s, and the government lacks the funds to maintain them, the Iraqi official said.

Aircraft at risk

Retired Colonel Salam Asaad said the aircraft would likely become inoperable without American expertise. “Local crews lack the experience to manage such a strategic system,” he said.

He added that the jets delivered to Iraq had been modified, with the United States removing some systems and not equipping them with long-range missiles.

Even during the war against ISIS, Iraqi F-16s relied on coalition aircraft to strike targets, he said.

Although the US Central Command has pointed to improved Iraqi self-sufficiency in recent years, the combination of technical dependence and sustained attacks has exposed vulnerabilities.

The attacks on Balad are part of a broader campaign since early March targeting US and Iraqi facilities. A source close to armed factions said the initial goal was to pressure US forces, but “when they withdrew, the targets expanded.”

The source said Iran’s Revolutionary Guards sought to isolate adversaries from the F-16 fleet and prevent its use during the conflict.

A former Iraqi official involved in procurement said Iran-aligned groups had long shown a strong interest in the aircraft, suggesting Tehran was uneasy with Iraq possessing such capabilities because it would view it as a threat.

‘Doomsday scenario’

An Iraqi official said a prolonged intelligence struggle had taken place between the US and Iranian sides over access to the aircraft’s systems, with armed groups repeatedly attempting to gather sensitive information.

Figures within Iraq’s ruling pro-Iran Coordination Framework warned of a potential “coup against what remains of the state.”

One figure said that after the war, factions could move toward a “doomsday scenario,” consolidating control over state military assets with political backing and institutional presence.

On March 30, head of the IRGC’s Quds Force Esmail Qaani said the “resistance’s joint operations room” had contributed to shaping a new regional order.

A former Iraqi official said earlier attempts by armed groups to penetrate military infrastructure had failed, but could now be seen as “a long rehearsal,” with Iraq being exposed to the Iranians during the war.