On June 13th, 2025, Israel launched airstrikes on Iran and began a new war in the Middle East, which is escalating.
The Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, has long claimed that Iran is close to building nuclear weapons.
But what he has not confirmed publicly, and what is whispered about in Israel and also in the Middle East as a public secret – is that Israel has nuclear weapons, dating back to the 1960s.
Israel is also not a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), an international agreement designed to halt the spread of nuclear weapons.
Analysts believe that the country’s nuclear program is centered on the nuclear facility in Dimona, a city in the Negev Desert.
Israel has an official policy of ambiguity and has never confirmed nor denied that it possesses any kind of nuclear weapons.
What is Dimona?
Dimona, the third-largest city in the Negev (desert, in Hebrew), is a closely guarded secret of the Israeli authorities and military.
Israel began work on the Dimona site around 1958, and it took the intelligence services of the United States (U.S.) about three years at the time to ‘discover’ this location, which was then a nuclear facility under construction.
Henry Gomberg, a professor and nuclear physicist who visited the site, testified that he came to the conclusion that Israel was involved in a ‘large nuclear project’. He reported his conclusions to the U.S. ambassador in Tel Aviv, Ogden Reid, the representative of the AEC (Atomic Energy Commission of the U.S.) in Paris, and upon his return to Washington, he was informed about it by members of the intelligence community.
Following his testimony, other information about this site in Israel began to arrive, which completed his reports. In early 1960, the CIA distributed its findings to government agencies, the White House, and Congress.
Dimona was finally discovered at that time.
In 1960, action was taken on this issue. The State Department summoned the Israeli ambassador and requested an explanation from Israel. For the first time, Dimona was placed on the negotiating table.
The late discovery of Dimona was clearly a major oversight by the U.S. intelligence community. However, from the Israeli perspective, this failure was crucial to the survival of the nuclear project. Had the U.S. discovered Dimona shortly after construction and exerted political pressure on both France and Israel, the Dimona project might never have been completed.
Looking back, the late 1950s may have been the only time the U.S. could have successfully pressured Israel to abandon its nuclear weapons project in exchange for U.S. security guarantees, but that opportunity was not used.
In modern times, more precisely in 2021, the Israeli government continued construction expansion at Dimona, although they never answered in detail what kind of work was being carried out at the Dimona site.
In accordance with its policy of nuclear ambiguity, Israel did not confirm nor deny at that time that it possesses nuclear weapons.
Previously, Israel claimed that the research facility called the “Shimon Peres Nuclear Research Center” was a research facility for “research purposes in atomic science.” According to available information, the Dimona reactor was involved in the production of nuclear materials for use in Israel’s nuclear weapons program, which is believed to have been possessed by Israel since 1967.
The construction then came at a time when Israel – under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – continued its sharp criticism of Iran’s nuclear program, which, unlike Israel’s, remains under the supervision of United Nations (UN) inspectors. This renewed calls from experts for Israel to publicly disclose details of its program.
“What the Israeli government is doing in this secret nuclear weapons facility is something the Israeli government should be honest about,” said Daryl G. Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association based in Washington, in 2021.
Last year, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) at the time considered that Israel, in recent months, was working on modernizing its nuclear weapons systems and had upgraded production facilities in the south of Israel amid a global trend of weakening nuclear diplomacy.
Israel has never publicly admitted to possessing nuclear weapons, but it was believed to have about 90 warheads in its arsenal, SIPRI assessed in its annual report (2024) on the state of global armament and security.
In addition to Israel, SIPRI examined the arsenals of eight other nuclear-armed states – the U.S., the United Kingdom (UK), Russia, France, China, India, Pakistan, and North Korea.
Is Dimona still a threat today?
With plutonium from Dimona, Israel is believed to have become one of only nine countries in the world with nuclear weapons. Given the secrecy surrounding its program, it remains unclear how many weapons it actually possesses.
Analysts estimate that Israel has material for at least 80 bombs. This weapon could likely be delivered by land-based ballistic missiles, fighter jets, or submarines.
Shimon Peres, who led the nuclear program and later served as Prime Minister and President of Israel, said in 1998: “We built the nuclear option not to have a Hiroshima, but to have an Oslo,” referring to both the first U.S. dropping of a nuclear bomb in World War II and Israel’s efforts to achieve a peace agreement with the Palestinians.
Even today, in 2025, Israel’s strategy of non-transparency also draws criticism from opponents, especially through the new attack on Iranian territory.
Nuclear threats from Iran and Israel
The NPT, signed in 1968 and in force since 1970, is one of the world’s most important agreements on arms control and the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons for the world’s states.
The goal of the treaty is to stop the spread of nuclear weapons production capabilities, to guarantee the right of all member states to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, and – for the original five nuclear powers – to gradually eliminate their arsenals.
The treaty defines nuclear-armed states as those that “have manufactured and exploded a nuclear weapon or other nuclear device prior to January 1st, 1967.” At that time, those were the U.S., the UK, France, China, and Russia, which assumed the rights and obligations of the former Soviet Union. These five countries are permanent members of the UN Security Council.
A total of 191 countries are members of the NPT. States possessing nuclear weapons agree not to transfer such weapons nor to assist states that do not have them in developing them.
Two countries that have not signed the treaty, India and Pakistan, developed nuclear weapons. Israel is generally assumed to possess a nuclear arsenal, but has not publicly confirmed or denied this, as noted earlier in the article.
North Korea signed the treaty in 1985, but announced its withdrawal in 2003 after being confronted by U.S. officials with evidence they claimed indicated a secret enrichment program. In 2009, North Korea expelled nuclear weapons inspectors, who have not returned to the country since.
Experts have estimated that Israel’s nuclear weapons stockpile ranges from 60 to even 400 warheads.
It is known that Iran operates uranium enrichment facilities in Natanz, about 80 km southeast of Qom, and Fordow, 20 km north of Qom, an Iranian city.
The Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, has in previous statements said that Iran could only potentially “make a nuclear bomb.”
