Dr. Hanan Balkhy, the World Health Organization Regional Director for the eastern Mediterranean, told Politico on March 17 that the WHO staff is on alert for any type of nuclear incident. “The worst-case scenario is a nuclear incident, and that’s something that worries us the most,” she warned.. “As much as we prepare, there’s nothing that can prevent the harm that will come … the region’s way—and globally if this eventually happens—and the consequences are going to last for decades.”
Balkhy emphasized concern over a possible military strike on a nuclear plant in the region (Iran and UAE have nuclear power plants, Israel a “nuclear research” plant), although she did not rule out the danger that Israel or the United States could use a nuclear weapon. Staff are “refreshing” measures in response to a nuclear incident in its “broader sense,” she told Politico, whether an attack on a nuclear facility or the use of a weapon. “We are thinking about it, and we’re just really hoping that it does not happen…. I think those who read the history of previous incidents, whether intentional or accidental, are very aware of what we’re talking about.”
Politico both noted that “Israel is itself widely believed to have a significant arsenal of nuclear weapons,” and underlined that “an estimated 110,000 to 210,000 people died from the U.S. nuclear attacks on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.”
