Israel and nuclear weapons

Israel is widely believed to possess nuclear weapons. Estimates of Israel's stockpile range from 90 to 400 warheads, and the country is believed to possess a nuclear triad of delivery options by air, land, and sea. Its first deliverable nuclear weapon is estimated to have been completed in late 1966 or early 1967, which would have made it the sixth of nine nuclear-armed countries.

Israel's delivery systems are estimated to include one squadron each of F-15 and F-16 fighters, five Dolphin-class submarines, with a total of 20 launch tubes for the Popeye Turbo submarine-launched cruise missile, and between 25 and 100 of the Jericho series of medium to intercontinental range ballistic missiles. Israel is also believed to have developed neutron bomb warheads and nuclear artillery rounds.

Israel maintains a policy of deliberate ambiguity, neither formally denying nor admitting to having nuclear weapons, instead repeating over the years that "Israel will not be the first country to introduce nuclear weapons to the Middle East". Israel interprets "introduce" to mean it will not test or formally acknowledge its nuclear arsenal. Western governments, including the United States, similarly do not acknowledge the Israeli capacity. Israeli officials, including prime ministers, have made statements that seemed to imply that Israel possesses nuclear weapons, including discussions of use in the Gaza war.

Israel has not signed the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, despite United Nations General Assembly pressure to do so. It argues that nuclear controls cannot be implemented in isolation of other security issues and that only following the establishment of peaceful relations of all countries in the region could controls be introduced via negotiation of "a mutually and effectively verifiable regime that [would] establish the Middle East as a zone free of chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons, as well as ballistic missiles."

Israel subscribes to the Begin Doctrine of counter-proliferation, including preventive strikes, which seeks to prevent other regional actors from acquiring nuclear weapons. The Israeli Air Force conducted Operation Opera and Operation Orchard, which destroyed pre-critical Iraqi and Syrian nuclear reactors in 1981 and 2007, respectively. Israel and the United States have extensively targeted Iran's nuclear program, with airstrikes during their 2025 war and 2026 war, as well as malware and assassinations since 2010. The Samson Option refers to Israel's ability to use nuclear weapons as a deterrence strategy in the face of existential military threats to the nation.

Israel began to investigate nuclear-related science soon after it declared independence in 1948, and, with French cooperation, secretly began building the Negev Nuclear Research Center, a facility near Dimona housing a nuclear reactor and reprocessing plant in the late 1950s. During the Six-Day War, Israel aborted a plan to demonstrate a nuclear weapon in the occupied Sinai. There is some evidence Israel increased its nuclear readiness during the Yom Kippur War and the Gulf War. The 1979 Vela incident is widely suspected to have been an Israeli nuclear test, in collaboration with South Africa. The first extensive media coverage came via the 1986 revelations by Mordechai Vanunu, a former Dimona technician. Vanunu was soon kidnapped by Mossad from Italy, brought back to Israel, and imprisoned for 18 years for treason and espionage. Israel is also suspected to possess offensive chemical and biological weapons.