Israeli nuclear development: Dimona, Nuclear weapons and Israel, Mordechai Vanunu, Vela Incident, Israel and weapons of mass destruction, Samson Option, Negev Nuclear Research Center, Protocol of Sèvres, Jericho, The Apollo Affair, Ernst David Bergmann

Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 27. Chapters: Dimona, Nuclear weapons and Israel, Mordechai Vanunu, Vela Incident, Israel and weapons of mass destruction, Samson Option, Negev Nuclear Research Center, Protocol of Sèvres, Jericho, The Apollo Affair, Ernst David Bergmann, Policy of deliberate ambiguity, Project Daniel, Operation Plumbat, Soreq Nuclear Research Center, Tirosh. Excerpt: Israel is widely believed to be the sixth country in the world to have developed nuclear weapons and to be one of four nuclear-armed countries not recognized as a Nuclear Weapons State by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the others being India, Pakistan and North Korea. Former International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Mohamed ElBaradei regarded Israel as a state possessing nuclear weapons, but Israel maintains a policy known as "nuclear ambiguity" (also known as "nuclear opacity"). Israel has never officially admitted to having nuclear weapons, instead repeating over the years that it would not be the first country to "introduce" nuclear weapons to the Middle East, leaving ambiguous whether it means it will not create, will not disclose, or will not make first use of the weapons. Israel has refused to sign the NPT despite international pressure to do so, and has stated that signing the NPT would be contrary to its national security interests. Israel started investigating the nuclear field soon after its founding in 1948 and with French support secretly began building a nuclear reactor and reprocessing plant in the late 1950s. Although Israel first built a nuclear weapon in the late 1960s, it was not publicly confirmed from the inside until Mordechai Vanunu, a former Israeli nuclear technician, revealed details of the program to the British press in 1986. Israel is currently believed to possess between 75 and 400 nuclear warheads with the ability to deliver them by intercontinental ballistic missile, aircraft, and submarine. Israel first showed interest in procuring nuclear materials in 1949, when a unit of the Israel Defense Forces Science Corps, known by the Hebrew acronym HEMED GIMMEL, carried out a two year geological survey of the Negev. While a preliminary study was initially prompted by rumors of petroleum fields, one objective of the longer two year survey was to find sources of uranium; some small recoverable amounts were found in phosph