US-Israeli strikes on Iran's oil and gas could poison people and environment for decades

US-Israeli strikes on Iran's oil and gas could poison people and environment for decades Katherine Hearst on Fri, 03/27/2026 - 14:15 Experts say pollution from escalating attacks on industrial and energy infrastructure poses deadly long-term implications for civilian health Members of Iran's Red Crescent society stand near smoke plumes from an ongoing fire following an overnight airstrike on the Shahran oil refinery in northwestern Tehran on 8 March 2026 (AFP) Off On the night of 7 March, air strikes hit four oil depots and refineries in and around Tehran. The resulting petrochemical fires burned for days, spewing columns of thick smoke which shrouded the skies of Iran's capital and poisoned its air. Residents described the fires as “hellscapes” and a “black monster”. Israel's military claimed responsibility for targeting fuel tanks in Tehran, while the US has denied involvement in the attack. Hours later, acid rain drops, black with oil, showered the city. Streets, cars, buildings and clotheslines were coated with a tarry substance for days after the strikes. The Conflict and Environment Observatory (CEOBS), a UK non-profit that assesses the environmental and humanitarian impacts of war, told Middle East Eye that the oily fires burned for five days. This left Tehran's residents - approximately nine million of them - to inhale chemicals that hung in the air, with only fabric face masks as a defence. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); A month into the Israeli-US war on Iran, CEOBS has warned that the environmental and public health costs in the country and the wider region are mounting. The observatory said that pollution from escalating attacks on industrial, energy and military targets in densely populated urban areas poses the greatest threat to public health and the environment. On 19 March, Israel's strike on Iran's South Pars gas field, and a retaliatory attack by Iran on Qatar's Ras Laffan, marked the first time facilities connected directly to the production of fossil fuel energy were hit. CEOBS has tracked some 300 incidents involving environmental risk since the war began on 28 February, reporting that attacks are now expanding to target more civilian and industrial infrastructure, including metallurgical plants - which process metallic raw materials and pose grave pollution risks. A dark smoke cloud surrounds a residential building near a fire following an overnight air strike on the Shahran oil refinery in northwestern Tehran, on 8 March 2026 (AFP) (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); But the apocalyptic images of Tehran's oil fires on 7 March offer the starkest illustration yet of the deadly long-term implications of the conflict for civilian health and the environment. CEOBS chief executive officer Doug Weir noted in an interview with Bloomberg that oil facilities are frequently targeted in conflicts, but said that “it's extremely rare for them to be close to a large city like Tehran”. Weir emphasised that the city's population is particularly vulnerable, given its dense urban fabric, which is peppered with military sites and oil depots, and its location. “The Tehran fires were particularly problematic because the city's geography traps pollution and we also saw a huge potentially exposed population,” Weir told MEE. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); Tehran sits at the base of the Alborz mountains, which restrict air circulation and trap pollution over the city. The Iranian capital's air had been heavily polluted for years. Crippling economic and trade sanctions have forced Iran to increasingly rely on "mazut"- a low-grade, highly polluting fuel. While the Iranian authorities urged residents to stay indoors, a study has shown that Tehran’s residential buildings are porous to outdoor pollution and would do little to eliminate the risk of exposure. A 'modern sacrifice zone' Weir also warned that Tehran’s population could be at risk of secondary exposure, through pollutants seeping into the soil and water supply. “Pollutants can travel through soils into groundwater and we know that oil products reached the storm sewers beneath the streets. It is often the case that the act of controlling the fires can also disperse pollutants into local soils and water resources," he told MEE. The fumes released by the fires contain a range of pollutants, including soot and oil particles. A number of them are so small they can penetrate deep into the lungs and lodge there. In the short term, this can lead to respiratory inflammation. 'Those who do not die directly from the strikes may still have their lives threatened indirectly through exposure to toxic gases' - Shukri al-Hassan, environmental scientist Residents reported suffering from headaches, eye and skin irritation and breathing difficulties. But deadlier health impacts could manifest years down the line. Environmental science expert Professor Shukri al-Hassan, who studied leukaemia cases resulting from oil flaring in Iraq’s Basra, warned that the tiny particles that embed themselves in the lung’s air sacs can be carcinogenic. “The accumulation of these particles and gases on plants, in water treatment facilities, or through prolonged inhalation can cause diseases in the future, including cancer,” Hassan told MEE. “This makes air pollution caused by bombardment another potential cause of death: those who do not die directly from the strikes may still have their lives threatened indirectly through exposure to toxic gases.” “Cancer cases can develop over many years following exposure, which is what makes these emissions particularly dangerous. Their effects do not disappear simply because emissions are reduced or stopped,” he said. In Basra, Hassan said, the cases of leukaemia are not abating, and remain particularly high among children and those living near oil facilities. A 2022 BBC News Arabic investigation into the impacts of oil flaring in Iraq found that cancer cases were “rife like the flu”, with the UN declaring the area to be a “modern sacrifice zone”. A chemical event Hassan emphasised that the recent attacks on Iran’s oil and gas infrastructure should be understood in the context of the wars in Iraq in 1991 and 2003, the impacts of which continued long after the fighting ended. “Gas emissions resulting from bombardment, along with the use of depleted uranium munitions, have affected public health for many years,” Hassan told MEE. 'The military doctrine of surgical strikes has always papered over a more brutal reality: that modern warfare is a chemical event' - Narges Bajoghli, anthropologist “It is likely that the effects of the current war will persist for a long time, impacting the health of people in affected regions, whether in Iran, Israel, the Gulf, or Iraq,” he said. Cultural anthropologist Narges Bajoghli, who worked with chemical weapons survivors in Iran following the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, wrote in New York magazine that, while there is no precise toll of those who died from chemical weapons deployed by Iraq in the decades following the conflict, the numbers run into the “tens of thousands”. A 1986 UN investigation into Iraq’s use of chemical munitions in Iran found that it had violated the 1925 Geneva Protocol’s ban, with the most extensive use of chemical weapons since the First World War, and the first combat use of nerve agents in history. Iraq continued deploying chemical munitions after the findings, enjoying continued support from the US. Bajoghli argued that, as a result: “The tacit lesson absorbed by militaries around the world is that toxic harm to civilian populations - if delivered in ways that preserve deniability, or are attributed to industrial accident, or simply are overwhelmed by the pace of other events - will not be meaningfully punished.” “The military doctrine of 'surgical strikes' has always papered over a more brutal reality: that modern warfare is a chemical event. Every missile, every bomb, every burning fuel depot releases its payload of toxic compounds into the air people breathe. The difference is whether we choose to count it.” War on Iran Heba Nasser News Post Date Override 0 Update Date Mon, 05/04/2020 - 21:19 Update Date Override 0