Satellite imagery analyzed by the Associated Press showed that Israel’s secret nuclear facility is undergoing what appears to be its largest construction and expansion project in decades.
The agency said in a report that “a drilling operation the size of a football field, possibly a depth of several floors, is now taking place meters away from the old reactor at the Shimon Peres Center for Nuclear Research, near the city of Dimona, in southern Israel.”
“The facility is already home to decades-old underground laboratories that reprocess spent reactor rods to obtain plutonium, which is used in making weapons for the Israeli nuclear weapons program,” she added.
However, the reason for the construction remains unclear.
The “Associated Press” indicated that the Israeli government did not respond to detailed questions it submitted to it about the nature of the ongoing work.
“In light of the nuclear ambiguity policy pursued by Israel, it neither confirms nor denies that it possesses atomic weapons, and it is among only four countries that have never joined the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, which is a historic international agreement aimed at stopping the spread of nuclear weapons, she said.
She pointed out that the construction comes at a time when Israel, under the leadership of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, continues “its harsh criticism of Iran’s nuclear program, which is still under the supervision of UN inspectors, unlike it.”
Secretive Israeli nuclear facility at the center of the nation's undeclared atomic weapons program undergoes major project, satellite images showhttps://t.co/G236u37z5j
Timelapse via @obretixpic.twitter.com/ZiWSFUqhSM
— avi scharf (@avischarf) February 25, 2021
Kimball of the Arms Control Association has indicated that Israel may want to produce more tritium, a relatively fast-dissolving radioactive by-product used to enhance the explosive capacity of some nuclear warheads.
It may also want new plutonium to “replace or extend the life of the warheads already in the Israeli nuclear arsenal,” he added.
Source: The Associated Press