October 10, 2019
Israel May Have 300 Nuclear
Weapons (Including Submarine-Launched Missiles)
A powerful, but unofficial, force.
by Sebastien Roblin
Key point: The exact details of Israel's nuclear arsenal is a tightly-held secret.
Israel has never officially admitted to possessing nuclear weapons.
Unofficially, Tel Aviv wants everyone to know it has them, and doesn’t hesitate to make thinly-veiled references to its willingness to use them if confronted by an existential threat. Estimates on the size of Tel Aviv’s nuclear stockpile range from 80 to 300 nuclear weapons, the latter number exceeding China’s arsenal.
Originally, Israel’s nuclear forces relied on air-dropped nuclear bombs and Jericho ballistic missiles. For example, when Egyptian and Syrian armies attacked Israel during the 1973 Yom Kippur War, a squadron of eight Israeli F-4 Phantom jets loaded with nuclear bombs was placed on alert by Prime Minister Golda Meir, ready to unleash nuclear bombs on Cairo and Damascus should the Arab armies break through.
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/israel-may-have-300-nuclear-weapons-including-submarine-launched-missiles-87131
