Part 1 of 2 Parts
As the war between Israel and Hamas rages on in Gaza, international organizations have expressed their concern over a widening of the conflict because it has the potential to involve nuclear weapons.
In October, the surprise Hamas attack on Israel started a war that has taken the lives of thousands of civilians. Israel continues to carry out what the head of the U.N. called “collective punishment” against Palestinians civilians. The attack on Israel also exposed a weakness in its military defense. Many question whether Israel could still defend itself with conventional weapons.
In an October 9th post on X, Israeli lawmaker Revital Gotliv urged his government to unleash a “doomsday weapon” carried by Israel’s Jerico ballistic missiles. However, the extent of Israel’s nuclear capabilities and whether they would be effective in battle is an open question.
Many international organizations and countries believe that Israel has nuclear weapons. However, Israel has conducted few, if any, tests of such weapons. The mystery that surrounds its nuclear program has raised questions among military experts about the nation’s actual deterrence capabilities. Israel has long maintained a policy of “nuclear ambiguity”. It has never directly confirmed or denied the existence of a nuclear arsenal.
Daryl Kimball is executive director of the Arms Control Association (ACA). He said, “Israel is universally believed to possess nuclear arms stored in a partially disassembled state”. The nation is believed to have about ninety nuclear war heads as well as the ability to build a hundred more with its fissile materials stockpiles.
Kimball stated that the use of nuclear weapons or even the threat of their use would make Israel “an international pariah and a target of foreign, conventional military attack”. The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) issued a statement recently that “Israel is a nuclear-armed state, the only such state in the Middle East”.
Alicia Sanders-Zakre is ICAN's policy and research coordinator. She said, “Israel's possession of nuclear weapons significantly increases the risks associated with the conflict and contributes to regional tensions. Escalation is a real danger”.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said that it was “following with concern” developments in the Middle East where it performs activities aimed at preventing the spread of nuclear weapons.
The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (TNPNW) considers the U.S., Britain, China, France and Russia to be “nuclear states”. They have this designation because they built and tested nuclear explosives before 1967. North Korea, Israel, Pakistan and India have nuclear weapons but have never signed the treaty.
The China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation Limited is an aerospace defense contractor for the People's Liberation Army. They recently published a paper in their journal. The paper said that the five treaty-recognized nuclear powers “all have land, sea and air-based nuclear strike capabilities and maintain a high level of nuclear combat readiness”. However, it is believed that Israel only has land-based capabilities. The effectiveness of nuclear strikes based solely on land-based capabilities is “questionable”.
The nuclear nations that have not signed on to the non-proliferation treaty have conducted less than ten nuclear tests each. The U.S. has conducted more than a thousand nuclear tests. North Korea is the only nation that has conducted any nuclear tests since the end of the 1990s. Although other countries are no longer testing their nuclear weapons, they have been able to maintain their nuclear arsenals through scientific assessments such as computer simulations of nuclear processes.
Please read Part 2 next