Israel’s nuclear weapons stockpile: What we know, what we don’t

The claim by an Iranian hacker group to have infiltrated the networks of the Dimona nuclear facility located in Israel’s Negev desert raised many concerns about the Israeli nuclear weapons stockpile .

The concern over Israel’s nuclear weapons stockpile was also raised last November when Israeli Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu said that one of Israel’s options in the war against Hamas could be to drop a nuclear bomb on the Gaza Strip.

Numerous countries including Russia, Iran and Turkey have questioned Israel’s nuclear weapons inventory in response to the war that has enveloped Gaza.

On October 7, the militant group Hamas led the deadliest Palestinian militant attack on Israel in history, with Israel subsequently launching its heaviest-ever airstrikes on Gaza in response. 1,139 people in Israel have been killed in the attack while about 32, 000 people , mainly women and children have been killed in Gaza the ensuing strikes by Israel .

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said his country is “at war” and has cut off food, fuel, electricity and medicine supplies into Gaza. Israel has called up 360,000 army reservists to use in attacks agianist Gaza.

Revital “Tally” Gotliv, an Israeli lawyer and member of the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, for the Likud political party, has publicly called for the deployment of a “doomsday” weapon—specifically mentioning the “Jericho” ballistic missile system—in retaliation for Hamas’ aggression.

Countries like Russia took umbrage with such statements. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova called comments by Eliyahu “provocative and unacceptable” and claimed that such public admissions of considering nuclear use was proof that Israel possessed nuclear weapons.

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute said last June, as part of its annual assessment of global armaments, disarmament and international security, that Israel is likely modernizing its nuclear arsenal and has 90 stored warheads.

Nikolai Sokov, senior fellow at the Vienna Center for Disarmament and Nonproliferation, previously told Newsweek that “Israel is definitely a nuclear weapon state” that adheres to a policy of ambiguity as to how many weapons it actually possesses.

Zakharova also questioned why international organizations such as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) have remained relatively silent in the light of such rhetoric.

An IAEA spokesperson told Newsweek via email that standard practice is to not comment on statements made by member state officials.

Israel is also not a party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) and has not accepted IAEA safeguards on some of its principal nuclear activities.

“The agency applies safeguards in Israel, pursuant to an item-specific safeguards agreement,” the spokesperson said.

Dmitry Gorenburg, a senior research scientist at the Center for Naval Analysis, told Newsweek via email that Russia’s response to Israeli nuclear threats is part of a larger geopolitical strategy that rebukes the West in reaction to nuclear constraints associated with the Ukraine war.

“Given the strong support for Israel coming from the United States, Russia sees an opportunity to strengthen relations with the Arab world at the expense of the U.S.,” Gorenburg said. “This is essentially a reprise of the Soviet Union’s Cold War strategy in the region.

“It’s also a constraint, in that Russian support for Israel would not help it geopolitically with Israel or with the West, but would have costs in terms of its relations with the Arab world.”

Turkey and Iran joined calls for investigation

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan also expressed his indignation at Israeli threats associated with nuclear weapons. He referred to the nation as a “spoiled child of the West.”

“The issue of nuclear weapons, the existence of which was admitted by Israeli ministers, should be investigated,” Erdoğan said during an emergency joint Arab-Islamic summit in the Saudi Arabia capital Riyadh. “If there are nuclear bombs smuggled out of the control of the International Atomic Energy Agency, they must be revealed.”

Amir Saeid Iravani, Iran’s permanent representative to the United Nations, said during the conference on the Establishment of a Middle East Zone Free of Nuclear and Other Weapons of Mass Destruction that such rhetoric has caused “real and widespread concerns” about proliferation.

“Recent nuclear threats by the Israeli regime’s high-ranking officials against Iran and Palestine highlight the danger posed by these weapons at the hands of such an illegitimate regime,” Iravani said, according to international Iranian news network Press TV.

Both Russia and Iran expressing joint concern towards Israel’s nuclear weapons stockpile is no surprise, Gorenburg said, considering that Moscow is dependent on certain Iranian weapons, like Shahed drones.

“Given Iran’s indirect involvement with Hamas, and with Hezbollah, I suspect that Russian leaders feel they are constrained from taking too strong an anti-Hamas position,” he said. “As for the nuclear rhetoric itself, I think it’s another case of whataboutism.

“Given the criticism of Russia tossing around nuclear rhetoric recently, its spokespeople are only too happy to highlight Western countries doing so.”

Newsweek, News Agencies