Mysterious image reveals construction in Israel
A new secret construction project in Israel is revealed by satellite images.
And according to experts, it is a facility for manufacturing nuclear bombs.
– It is very difficult to imagine anything else, says nuclear weapons expert Jeffrey Lewis.
The American-Israeli airstrike this summer is said to have knocked out Iran's nuclear weapons program.
Israel thus also secured its position as the Middle East's only nuclear power.
Meanwhile, newly captured images from the southern Israeli city of Dimona show a new facility taking shape, the AP news agency reports.
The secrecy surrounding the project makes it difficult to determine what it actually is, but according to seven experts, most evidence points to it being linked to Israel's nuclear weapons program.
Most likely a new heavy water reactor to produce plutonium, one of the keys needed to build an atomic bomb.
"It's probably a reactor. It's hard to imagine anything else," says Jeffrey Lewis of the James Martin Center, which works to limit the spread of weapons of mass destruction.
Israel has never admitted to having nuclear weapons, but speculation has been going on since the 1960s.
Israel is believed to have begun building the nuclear power plant in the desert in the late 1950s after the war with its Arab neighbors.
It is difficult to estimate how many nuclear warheads are available, but according to the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, they had about 90 in 2022.
Daryl G. Kimball, head of the Washington-based Arms Control Association, does not rule out that the new facility is for manufacturing actual warheads.
“If it is a heavy water reactor, they are trying to maintain the capacity to produce spent fuel that they can then process to separate plutonium for more nuclear weapons. Or they are building a facility to maintain their arsenal or build additional warheads,” he told the AP.
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