Qatar Raises Israeli Nuclear Surveillance Issue Again

Israel's possession of nuclear weapons has come under scrutiny once again. This time, Qatar is urging the International Atomic Energy Agency and related institutions to monitor these weapons. Israel has reportedly possessed nuclear bombs since at least 1967.

Israel has repeatedly threatened to use it. Despite being aware of this, the United States does not act sternly toward Israel. This contrasts with the U.S. stance toward Iran or North Korea.

The latest call for monitoring Israel's nuclear weapons was conveyed by Qatar's Permanent Representative in Vienna, Jassim Yacoub Al Hammadi. During the Board of Governors meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on Saturday (8/3/2025) in Vienna, Al Hammadi emphasized that all countries in the Middle East have signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Only Israel has not signed the treaty.

The international community, Al Hammadi continued, needs to uphold the resolutions of the United Nations Security Council, the General Assembly of PBB, the IAEA, and the 1995 NPT Review Recommendations. All these documents urge that Israel's nuclear weapons be monitored by the IAEA. Moreover, some documents call for Israel to sign the NPT by becoming a non-nuclear-weapon state.

Al Hammadi's insistence brings up an issue that has been discussed for decades. Despite the verification of numerous intelligence documents and the involvement of various parties, Israel has never officially admitted to possessing nuclear weapons.

According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, in a June 2024 statement, Israel is believed to have at least 90 nuclear warheads. Meanwhile, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) Coalition said that Israel can launch nuclear bombs with land, sea and air missiles.

ICAN stated that many countries pretend to be unaware of Israel's nuclear bombs. ICAN emphasized that the disarmament of Israel's nuclear weapons is crucial for peace in the Middle East.

"Analyzing Israel's nuclear arsenal is fraught with uncertainty. Not just because Israel doesn't officially acknowledge having nuclear weapons. Our best knowledge, based on satellite imagery, launch devices, and fuel, is that it has a stockpile of at least 90 warheads," said Matt Korda.

He is a researcher at the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists (FAS), one of the institutions that routinely studies the nuclear weapons stockpiles of various countries, including the US and Russia.

Israel has repeatedly threatened to use its nuclear weapons. One such threat was issued in 2023 by Israeli Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu. He said that bombing Gaza with nukes was one option. Several Israeli lawmakers have expressed similar views.

In mid-1999, in an interview with Avner Cohen, the late Brigadier General (ret.) Itzhak Yaakov revealed that Israel had possessed a nuclear bomb since 1967. At that time, Israel was at war with its neighbors.

Yaakov spent his military career in the research unit of the Israeli military, the tzahal, aka the IDF. He was involved in the creation of Israel's atomic bomb for many years.

A year after the Cohen interview was published, at the age of 75, Yaakov was arrested. He was accused of threatening national security by again discussing Israel's nuclear weapons.

In 2001, he was interviewed by Israeli journalist Ronen Bergman about Israel's nuclear capabilities. Like Yaakov, Cohen and Bergman are both Jewish.

In a separate document from FAS, the creation of the Israeli nuclear bomb in 1967 is also mentioned. According to the FAS document, Prime Minister Levi Eshkol ordered the creation of the bomb.

The FAS document also states that Israel made 13 atomic bombs with a power of 20 kilotons each. For comparison, the atomic bomb dropped by the US on Nagasaki, Japan in 1945 had a power of 21 kilotons.

According to the FAS, the US has known about Israel's atomic bomb program since at least 1958. At that time, a US U-2 reconnaissance plane flew over the Negev Desert and captured early images of the Dimona nuclear reactor. In December 1960, Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion admitted that Israel had a Dimona reactor built for peaceful purposes.

Almost simultaneously with Ben-Gurion's confession, the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) published a study on Israel's nuclear capabilities. According to the CIA, Israel was capable of making a nuclear bomb. The US sent teams to inspect the Dimona reactor at least seven times in the 1960s.

Former US Ambassador to Tel Aviv, Walworth Barbour, admitted to not reporting Israel's nuclear developments to the US President. In fact, after the Six-Day War in 1967, he prohibited the US intelligence attaché in Israel from collecting data on the developments in the Dimona reactor.

He argued that he did not want to make the president nervous. Information about the development of Israel's nuclear bomb in the early 1960s was said to have been deliberately withheld by US bureaucrats.

In a memo from the US National Security Adviser to the US President in October 1969, Washington said it was necessary to check Tel Aviv's nuclear capabilities. The check was for the stability of the Middle East.

The British media, the London Sunday Times, in 1986 published an article and photos about Israeli nuclear bombs stored in the Dimona reactor basement. Former Israeli nuclear technician, Mordechai Vanunu, supplied the information and photos.

Based on that information, experts in various countries estimate that Israel has up to 200 nuclear warheads. Israel is also said to be able to produce 40 kilograms of nuclear bomb raw materials every year.

The warheads can be mounted on Jericho-1 and Jericho-2 missiles. Israel can also launch the warheads via submarines and bombers.