Israel launched strikes on targets inside Iran, citing Tehran’s proximity to building a nuclear bomb and the threat it poses to the Jewish state’s existence. Under the same pretext, the United States carried out airstrikes on Iran’s Fordow nuclear facility.
Yet Israel itself has long resisted transparency: it has not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, does not acknowledge possessing nuclear weapons, and offers no clarity on the conditions under which it might use them. Independent experts, however, estimate that Israel possesses dozens of operational warheads, backed by sophisticated delivery systems. This policy enables Israel to maintain strategic superiority while avoiding international oversight.
The Strike on Iran and the Context of Nuclear Accusations
Israel’s air force launched strikes on Iran, citing the ayatollahs’ regime being one step away from building a nuclear weapon and openly threatening the existence of the Jewish state. Israel itself, however, has long been regarded as a covert nuclear power. Experts believe Tel Aviv acquired the bomb as early as the 1960s, though the government has never acknowledged this status, disclosed the size of its arsenal, or explained under what conditions it might be used.
According to global disarmament initiatives, nine countries possess nuclear weapons: Russia, the United States, China, France, the United Kingdom, India, Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea. Israel is most commonly estimated to have around ninety operational warheads—more only than North Korea—along with enough fissile material for up to 300 additional devices. Its delivery systems are diverse: fighter jets, submarines equipped with cruise missiles, and land-based ballistic systems.
A Direct War
Trump Has Done What He Promised to Avoid
The Strike on Iran Turns a Pressure Strategy Into an Unpredictable Gamble
Fordow Is Iran’s Underground Nuclear Facility, Out of Reach for Israeli Strikes
Here Is What We Know About It
Israel Outside the Non-Proliferation Treaty
Israel is one of five countries that remain outside the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The treaty grants official nuclear status only to states that tested a bomb before January 1, 1967, and prohibits sharing the technology with others. Iran, by contrast, signed the treaty. Its military program was believed to have been halted in 2003, but covert research later resumed. Recently, Western intelligence agencies have assessed that Tehran is nearing the weapons threshold, though Washington believes a final political decision has not yet been made.
How Israel’s Nuclear Program Was Built
Research in Israel began almost immediately after the state’s founding in 1948. The first chair of the national atomic commission called the bomb the best guarantee that "we will no longer be led like lambs to the slaughter." In 1957, with French support, construction began in the Negev desert on the Dimona complex: a reactor and an underground plutonium reprocessing facility. This secret alliance—based on shared hostility toward Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser—was so tightly sealed that the U.S. only discovered the site in 1960 and carried out eight inspections in the years that followed. Israel insisted it was a "peaceful atom," even building fake walls to conceal the true scale of operations.
By spring 1967, U.S. intelligence had concluded that Israel could assemble a nuclear device within six to eight weeks. According to historian Avner Cohen, several rudimentary weapons were indeed prepared on the eve of the Six-Day War. In 1968, the CIA reported that Israel had moved to serial production of nuclear weapons.
A Strategy of Ambiguity and Informal Agreements
Since then, Israel has never used its warheads. They were reportedly placed on high alert in 1967 and again in 1973, but never launched. There have been no confirmed tests, although a double flash detected by a U.S. satellite over the South Atlantic in September 1979 sparked speculation of a joint Israeli–South African test. President Jimmy Carter, in his diary, leaned toward the Israeli theory.
Israel has no formal doctrine: it neither confirms nor denies possessing nuclear weapons. Cohen asserts that, on the eve of the Six-Day War, Israel adopted the "Samson Option"—a demonstration detonation over the Sinai in the event of an existential threat, though it remains unclear whether the technology at the time could have supported this. In 1969, according to the same sources, the U.S. and Israel reached a tacit agreement: Washington would not push for disarmament as long as Israel kept its arsenal undeclared and did not use it first. In 2011, Benjamin Netanyahu reaffirmed this position: "We will not be the first to introduce nuclear weapons into the Middle East." What exactly "introduce" means, Israeli officials do not specify.
This policy of "nuclear opacity" allows Jerusalem to enjoy the benefits of nuclear status—deterring adversaries—without being subject to international inspections. When asked why Tehran should be transparent if Israel itself avoids scrutiny, Netanyahu replied simply: "We’re not calling for any country to be wiped off the map. But that’s exactly what’s being threatened against us."
No More Proxies
Israel Strikes Iran’s Nuclear Facilities
The Campaign Weakens Tehran but Doesn’t Eliminate the Threat
Netanyahu Ignores Trump’s Warnings and Launches Operation Against Iran
