Why Israel has long been believed to have a nuclear weapons programme

Published

3 weeks ago

June 23, 2025

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Shrouded in secrecy. Never confirmed or denied by the government. This is Israel’s alleged nuclear weapons programme.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has long warned that Iran’s nuclear research is secretly looking to develop a nuclear bomb – something Iran has repeatedly denied.

But for decades there have been suspicions that Israel, not Iran, is the first Middle East country to obtain a nuclear weapon.

“It’s very opaque, there’s very little detailed information about it,” says Professor Nick Ritchie, an expert on international security and nuclear proliferation at the University of York.

But he adds: “There’s no debating whether Israel has nuclear weapons and a nuclear weapons programme. Everybody knows it does.”

When did Israel supposedly get nuclear weapons?

It’s believed Israel began building a stockpile of nuclear weapons in the early 1960s, according to a research document for the UK parliament.

“Israel developed nuclear weapons because of fear of encirclement and attack by the Arab states, potentially supported by the Soviet Union, that opposed its existence,” Prof Ritchie tells Sky News.

“There was a sense of acute threat to the existence of the Jewish state after the Holocaust. Back then it was not the regional power that it is now.”

In a declassified memo to President Richard Nixon in 1969, US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger discussed the recent purchase by Israel of American Phantom fighter aircraft – which were capable of carrying nuclear weapons.

He told the president that Israel had committed “not to be the first to introduce nuclear weapons” to the Middle East.

Kissinger added: “But it was plain from the discussion that they interpreted that to mean they could possess nuclear weapons as long as they did not test, deploy, or make them public.”

Whistleblower describes working at Israeli nuclear reactor

In the late 1980s, an Israeli former nuclear technician revealed information about his work at Israel’s Dimona reactor to a British newspaper, which led foreign experts to conclude that Israel had produced enough material for up to 200 nuclear warheads.

Mordechai Vanunu was later kidnapped by Mossad and brought back to Israel, where he was sentenced to 18 years in prison, the UK parliament document said.

When asked on CNN in 2011 whether his country has nuclear weapons, Mr Netanyahu responded: “Well, we have a longstanding policy that we won’t be the first to introduce nuclear weapons into the Middle East, and that hasn’t changed.”

Prof Ritchie says: “Senior Israeli officials, including prime ministers such as Ehud Barak, have acknowledged that Israel has a nuclear weapons programme, more often when they have retired.”

While it has repeatedly criticised Iran for what it claims is a pursuit of nuclear weapons, Israel itself is not signed up to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which commits countries that don’t have nuclear arms not to build or obtain them.

What nuclear weapons might Israel have?

Given Israel’s policy of ambiguity in relation to its alleged nuclear weapons programme, it’s hard to precisely estimate how many nuclear warheads it may possess – and what type.

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), an independent organisation that provides analysis about conflict, says Israel likely has 90 warheads and they are made from plutonium.

Prof Ritchie says it is difficult to be certain but it is believed Israel has fission-based nuclear weapons – like the kind dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the US.

Whether they have thermonuclear fusion weapons – more powerful bombs like those in the arsenals of the US, Russia and the UK – is “difficult to say with certainty”.

“But of course Israel is a very geographically small state,” Prof Ritchie says, adding that in the event of an existential attack on the country, any use of its nuclear weapons against the armed forces of attackers in the region could result in Israel facing “extensive fallout” from the blasts.

How would Israel launch any potential nuclear attack?

There is the question of how Israel would deliver any nuclear strike.

The UK parliament document says: “Based on unconfirmed reports, Israel could be in possession of the nuclear triad, making it capable of delivering a nuclear capability via land, air and/or sea.”

The IDF operates several planes that could be capable of launching nuclear weapons, including the American-made F-16 and F-35 fighter jets.

Around 30 of Israel’s nuclear warheads are estimated to be gravity bombs (unguided munitions dropped from aircraft) for delivery by fighter jets, SIPRI has said.

It also reportedly has the ground-launched Jericho ballistic missile family, reportedly with ranges that could exceed 5,500km (3,400 miles), according to the UK parliament document.

It’s thought that up to 50 nuclear warheads are assigned for land-based missile delivery, SIPRI said.

The Israeli government has never confirmed that it possesses Jericho missiles.

Finally, Israel operates five Dolphin-class submarines which may also be capable of carrying nuclear warheads.

“Given that Israel does not officially acknowledge its apparent possession of nuclear weapons, the circumstances under which it would use them are highly unclear,” SIPRI said.

Debate over nuclear weapons

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Discussion of Israel’s alleged nuclear weapons programme raises questions about which countries – if any – should possess them and how this is enforced.

“The argument that nuclear weapons are acceptable for Israel but not for other states in the region is widely viewed as Western hypocrisy that is difficult for a number of countries to accept,” says Prof Ritchie.

“If it’s not acceptable for Iran to have nuclear weapons, why is it acceptable for Israel to have them? This is why many countries in the region, like Egypt, have pushed for the negotiation of a treaty to ban all weapons of mass destruction in the region, covering chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.”

Sky News has approached the Israeli government for comment.

World

At least 30 dead and 100 injured as armed groups clash in Syria, officials say

Published

12 hours ago

July 14, 2025

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At least 30 dead and 100 injured as armed groups clash in Syria, officials say

At least 30 people have been killed in the Syrian city of Sweida in clashes between local military groups and tribes, according to Syria’s interior ministry.

Officials say initial figures suggest around 100 people have also been injured in the city, where the Druze faith is one of the major religious groups.

The interior ministry said its forces will directly intervene to resolve the conflict, which the Reuters news agency said involved fighting between Druze gunmen and Bedouin Sunni tribes.

It marks the latest episode of sectarian violence in Syria, where fears among minority groups have increased since Islamist-led rebels toppled President Bashar al Assad in December, installing their own government and security forces.

The violence reportedly erupted after a wave of kidnappings, including the abduction of a Druze merchant on Friday on the highway linking Damascus to Sweida.

Last April, Sunni militia clashed with armed Druze residents of Jaramana, southeast of Damascus, and fighting later spread to another district near the capital.

But this is the first time the fighting has been reported inside the city of Sweida itself, the provincial capital of the mostly Druze province.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reports the fighting was centred in the Maqwas neighbourhood east of Sweida and villages on the western and northern outskirts of the city.

It adds that Syria’s Ministry of Defence has deployed military convoys to the area.

Western nations, including the US and UK, have been increasingly moving towards normalising relations with Syria.

Concerns among minority groups have intensified following the killing of hundreds of Alawites in March, in apparent retaliation for an earlier attack carried out by Assad loyalists.

That was the deadliest sectarian flare-up in years in Syria, where a 14-year civil war ended with Assad fleeing to Russia after his government was overthrown by rebel forces.

The city of Sweida is in southern Syria, about 24 miles (38km) north of the border with Jordan.

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Meredith Kercher’s killer faces new trial over sexual assault allegations

Published

1 day ago

July 13, 2025

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Meredith Kercher's killer faces new trial over sexual assault allegations

The man convicted of the murder of British student Meredith Kercher has been charged with sexual assault against an ex-girlfriend.

Rudy Guede, 38, was the only person who was definitively convicted of the murder of 21-year-old Ms Kercher in Perugia, Italy, back in 2007.

He will be standing trial again in November after an ex-girlfriend filed a police report in the summer of 2023 accusing Guede of mistreatment, personal injury and sexual violence.

Guede, from the Ivory Coast, was released from prison for the murder of Leeds University student Ms Kercher in 2021, after having served about 13 years of a 16-year sentence.

Since last year – when this investigation was still ongoing – Guede has been under a “special surveillance” regime, Sky News understands, meaning he was banned from having any contact with the woman behind the sexual assault allegations, including via social media, and had to inform police any time he left his city of residence, Viterbo, as ruled by a Rome court.

Guede has been serving a restraining order and fitted with an electronic ankle tag.

The Kercher murder case, in the university city of Perugia, was the subject of international attention.

Ms Kercher, a 21-year-old British exchange student, was found murdered in the flat she shared with her American roommate, Amanda Knox.

The Briton’s throat had been cut and she had been stabbed 47 times.

Ms Knox and her then-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, were placed under suspicion.

Both were initially convicted of murder, but Italy’s highest court overturned their convictions, acquitting them in 2015.

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IDF blames ‘technical error’ after Gaza officials say children collecting water killed in strike

Published

1 day ago

July 13, 2025

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IDF blames 'technical error' after Gaza officials say children collecting water killed in strike

The Israeli military says it missed its intended target after Gaza officials said 10 Palestinians – including six children – were killed in a strike at a water collection point.

Another 17 people were wounded in the strike on a water distribution point in Nuseirat refugee camp, said Ahmed Abu Saifan, an emergency physician at Al Awda Hospital.

The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said it had intended to hit an Islamic Jihad militant but a “technical error with the munition” had caused the missile to fall “dozens of metres from the target”.

The IDF said the incident is under review, adding that it “works to mitigate harm to uninvolved civilians as much as possible” and “regrets any harm to uninvolved civilians”.

Officials at Al Awda Hospital said it received 10 bodies after the Israeli strike on the water collection point and six children were among the dead.

Ramadan Nassar, who lives in the area, said around 20 children and 14 adults were lined up Sunday morning to fill up water.

When the strike occurred, everyone ran and some, including those who were severely injured, fell to the ground, he said.

In total, 19 people were killed in Israeli strikes in the Gaza Strip on Sunday, local health officials said.

Two women and three children were among nine killed after an Israeli strike on a home in the central town of Zawaida, officials at Al Aqsa Martyrs Hospital said.

Israel has claimed it hit more than 150 targets in the besieged enclave in the past day.

The latest strikes come after the Israel military opened fire near an aid centre in Rafah on Saturday. The Red Cross said 31 people were killed.

The IDF has said it fired “warning shots” near the aid distribution site but it was “not aware of injured individuals” as a result.

The war in Gaza started in response to Hamas’s attack on Israel on 7 October 2023, which killed 1,200 people and saw about 250 taken hostage.

More than 58,000 Palestinians have since been killed, with more than half being women and children, according to Gaza’s health ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count.

US President Donald Trump has said he is closing in on another ceasefire agreement that would see more hostages released and potentially wind down the war.

But after two days of talks this week with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, there were no signs of a breakthrough, as a new sticking point emerged over the deployment of Israeli troops during the truce.

Hamas still holds 50 hostages, with fewer than half of them believed to be alive, after most of the rest were released in ceasefire agreements or other deals.