Iran threatens strike on Israel's nuclear facility in Dimona

Iran will strike Israel’s nuclear facility in Dimona if Israel and the United States attempt to overthrow the regime in Tehran, a senior Iranian military official warned earlier, according to Iranian media.

The Shimon Peres Negev Nuclear Research Centre, commonly referred to as the Dimona nuclear facility, is a secretive nuclear installation in the Negev desert of southern Israel that began construction in 1958 with French assistance and became operational in the early 1960s.

The Israeli government officially describes the site as devoted to peaceful nuclear research, but independent analysts and historical records indicate the reactor produces plutonium and other materials widely believed to support Israel’s undeclared nuclear weapons program.

Israel has maintained a policy of strategic ambiguity about its capabilities, never joining the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and refusing comprehensive inspections of Dimona by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

By Jeyhun Aghazada