A Look At Israel's Nuclear Program As It Attacks Iran For Wanting One

While Israel launched a war against Iran, saying it aims to prevent Tehran from acquiring a nuclear weapon -- a charge Iran denies-- Jerusalem may be hiding a few skeletons in its closet. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Natayenyahu's government claims Iran had reached the "point of no return" in its nuclear ambitions, but Israel remains the only country in the Middle East believed to possess nuclear weapons.

Jerusalem is already estimated to have at least 90 nuclear warheads, and its secretive nuclear weapons program-- one that it doesn't publicly acknowledge-- is expanding, according to a report by the New York Times. 

Alexander K. Bollfrass, a nuclear security expert at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, told the NYT that from an official diplomatic posture perspective, "the Israelis will not confirm or deny" their nuclear arsenal. Instead, Jerusalem reportedly says it wouldn't be the first nation to "introduce" nuclear weapons to the Middle East. 

The deliberate use of vague wording amounts to an "obfuscation over what is clearly an established nuclear weapons program," according to Bollfrass.

Inside Israel's Nuclear Arsenal

Israel's uranium stockpile is big enough to produce hundreds of nuclear warheads, according to the Centre for Arms Control and Nonproliferation and the Nuclear Threat Initiative.

Only 30 countries in the world are capable of developing nuclear weapons, of which only nine are known to possess them, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency, the nuclear watchdog for the United Nations.

But only five countries-- including the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Russia and China--are recognised as official nuclear states under the UN Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty-- an agreement signed in 1968 by major nuclear and non-nuclear powers that pledged their cooperation.

All these nations that are officially recognised as nuclear powers under the treaty have detonated a nuclear weapon by 1967, the cutoff date in the treaty to qualify for the designation. 

The other four nuclear nations-- India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel-- have not signed the treaty as their nuclear programmes were not official before the cutoff day. To be recognised as a nuclear state, Israel would need to sign the treaty, for which it would have to give up its nuclear weapons, which is very unlikely. 

Of the nine nations, Israel's arsenal is the eighth largest, according to a Nobel Prize-winning advocacy group, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. 

When Did Israel Start Developing Nuclear Weapons?

The Israel Atomic Energy Commission was established in 1952, but Jerusalem did not start building a nuclear weapons development site till 1958. It is widely believed that Israel's nuclear weapons program is housed near the southern Israeli town of Dimona. 

The NYT report cited a recently declassified US Joint Atomic Energy Intelligence Committee's report from 1960, which stated that the Dimona project included a reprocessing plant for plutonium production and was related to nuclear weapons.

Israel has secretly developed the ability to build nuclear explosives around 1967, according to the Arms Control Association. The United States was reportedly convinced by 1973 that Israel had nuclear weapons. 

However, so far, Israel has not used its nuclear weapons in any war.