The hostilities in the Middle East have renewed concerns about Israel’s widely known but officially unacknowledged nuclear arsenal, with an expert warning of catastrophic consequences if the weapons were used in the armed conflict.
According to Alicia Sanders-Zakre, head of policy at the Geneva-based International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), it is “widely acknowledged among experts that Israel is a nuclear-armed country, but this has never been formally acknowledged by Israel or by the United States”.
“This is, of course, really dangerous because as long as a country possesses a nuclear arsenal, there’s a risk that nuclear weapons might be used intentionally or accidentally,” Sanders-Zakre said on Tuesday.
In 2023, fears arose over whether Israel would introduce nuclear weapons into the war in Gaza after Israeli lawmaker Revital Gotliv urged the unleashing of a “doomsday weapon” carried by Israel’s Jericho ballistic missiles.