Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid said this week Israel has “other capabilities” against threats from Iran, in a rare allusion to the country’s widely reported nuclear stockpile.
Speaking at an event to mark the new head of the Israel Atomic Energy Commission, Lapid discussed Israel’s defensive and offensive capabilities, as well as its “other capabilities” — an apparent reference to nuclear weapons.
“The operational arena in the invisible dome above us is built on defensive capabilities and offensive capabilities, and what the foreign media tends to call ‘other capabilities.’ These other capabilities keep us alive and will keep us alive so long as we and our children are here,” Lapid said.
Israel has never formally acknowledged possession of nuclear weapons, and is not a party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). It is widely believed to have stockpiled several hundred weapons since the 1960s.
Former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, who is still in charge of the Iran file, also spoke at the event, saying “enormous resources” have been invested in combating the Iranian nuclear threat.
“A year ago we made a series of decisions whose aim was to refine assessments on our side to deal with the Iranian nuclear [weapons],” Bennett said. “We allocated enormous resources to close gaps that kept me awake [at night].”
“The Iranians are making progress, but the Israeli system has been working at full strength for the past year,” Bennett continued. “I know you will continue to work, regardless of the political upheavals in the country.”
Recent months have seen a series of mysterious blasts at Iranian nuclear sites as well several high profile assassinations, many of which Tehran said Jerusalem was behind.
In a rare acknowledgement of Israeli operations in Iran, National Security Adviser Eyal Hulata said recently that Israel had “acted quite a lot in Iran over the past year.”