As fighting between Israel and Iran is boiling over, two urgent questions are being asked.
Does Israel have nuclear weapons – and how many? And could the conflict trigger a wider war, even a World War III?
With hundreds of ballistic missiles being launched across borders in the Middle East, understanding what is at stake is more important than ever.
This is what we know about Israel’s nuclear arsenal, and how the current crisis could spiral into a much larger war.
Does Israel have nuclear weapons?
Israel’s military superiority in the Middle East comes not just through its conventional arsenal or the backing of the US – but from its rich nuclear arsenal.
It is one of nine countries to possess such nukes, and the only one in the region – and it is widely believed to have one of the most advanced such programmes in the world.
Despite widespread acknowledgement by experts and former government officials of their existence, Israel has never confirmed this.
Since the 1960s, it has followed a policy of nuclear ambiguity. At the time, it went to great lengths hide its nuclear ambitions from the international community, even its closest allies.
Even US inspectors were misled during early visits to the Nuclear Research Center near Dimona, in the Negev desert, which was initially described as a textile factory.
Today, estimates of its stockpile range between 90 and 400 warheads, all of which could be delivered by air, as cruise missiles fired from submarines and through the Jericho line of ballistic missiles.
A few days before Israel’s unprecedented attack on Iran, in which dozens of people – most of them civilians – have been killed, Iran had threatened to release a hoard of Israeli nuclear secrets it claims to have obtained.
Last Sunday, Iran’s intelligence minister, Esmail Khatib, claimed the regime had obtained ‘a vast collection of strategic and sensitive documents, including plans and data on the nuclear facilities’.
Does Iran have nuclear weapons?
Iran is transparent about having a nuclear programme but insists that it has developed no warheads.
But ever since the US pulled out of a landmark nuclear non-proliferation treaty in 2018 under Donald Trump, it has been ramping up production of fissile material in recent years.
Iran now enriches uranium to near weapons-grade levels of 60%, the only country in the world without a nuclear weapons programme to do so.
Under the original 2015 nuclear deal, Iran was allowed to enrich uranium up to 3.67% purity and to maintain a uranium stockpile of 300 kilograms.
During his second term in the Oval Office, Trump has been working to reach an agreement on curbing Iran’s programme.
There has been several rounds of talks between the US and Iran – up until the Israeli attacks – and Trump imposed new sanctions on the country as part of his ‘maximum pressure’ campaign.
Could Israel-Iran conflict lead to World War III?
Fears are rising that the US and even Gulf states will become involved in the war, but it is unlikely that it will result in a global conflict.
Jason Pack, fellow at Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) and host of the Disorder Podcast, told Metro that the Iranian regime is ‘really weakened’.
He said: ‘The Iranians don’t have the capability to bring us to World War III.
‘It is much more likely to see the Iranian people rise up against the regime than we are to see the Iranians like land some decisive blow against Israel.’
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