Dimona: the secret nuclear site at the heart of Israel’s undeclared arsenal

Inside Dimona: the secret nuclear site at the heart of Israel’s

undeclared arsenal. As efforts to thwart Iran’s nuclear ambitions have
intensified, work on an Israeli nuclear site has gathered pace. Isabel
Coles reports from the Negev desert. The road through the Negev desert cuts
across a lunar landscape, past giant erosion craters, date groves, a
crocodile farm – and Israel’s worst-kept secret. The Dimona nuclear
site is not visible from the road, but it appears clearly in satellite
images. The nuclear weapons programme looms quietly in the background as
Iran, facing an existential threat from Israel and the US, lashes out
across the region. An Iranian military official last week threatened to
target the Dimona nuclear site if Israel and the US sought regime change.
Israel has never confirmed or denied having nuclear weapons. But the
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute last year assessed it has
more than 80 nuclear warheads, and Israeli officials occasionally allude to
them. “We have weapons that we haven’t used yet, and we will use them if
we feel threatened to the point of an existential threat,” said the
deputy speaker of Israel’s Knesset, Nissim Vaturi in an interview with
the ’News Arena’ channel last month as the country was gearing up for
war. “They have Persian carpets, we have the textile factory.”

 The Observer 12th March 2026 

 https://observer.co.uk/news/international/article/inside-dimona-the-secret-nuclear-site-at-the-heart-of-israels-undeclared-arsenal