Iran’s Mohammad Eslami says ‘the Zionist regime has admitted to possessing nuclear weapons, and more importantly, threatening the oppressed and innocent people of Gaza’
By Sam Soko
Nov 8, 2023
Far-right minister Amichai Eliyahu’s musings on dropping a nuclear weapon on Gaza amount to a tacit admission of Israel’s nuclear capability, the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization declared on Wednesday, calling on the United Nations to address the “grave threat” posed by Jerusalem.
“Once again, an official of the Zionist regime has admitted to possessing nuclear weapons, and more importantly, by threatening the oppressed and innocent people of Gaza, he questioned the most basic principles of international law and the UN Charter,” AEOI chief Mohammad Eslami told Iran’s official IRNA news agency.
On Sunday, Eliyahu mused during a radio interview that dropping a nuclear weapon on the Gaza Strip was “an option,” adding that, in his view, “there are no non-combatants in Gaza.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu decried such comments were “divorced from reality” and announced that he was suspending Eliyahu from government meetings until further notice, an action he was not authorized by law to take and which he did not subsequently enforce.
Eslami “acknowledged that some countries have already denounced the remarks but stated that it is high time international organizations, especially the United Nations, broke their silence and took firm actions in the face of such audacity,” IRNA reported, adding that he had called upon the International Atomic Energy Agency should take a hard look at Israel.
International organizations ought to “announce the consequences of the threat of using nuclear weapons by this fake regime to the United Nations Security Council in addition to condemning these destructive threats which are contrary to the principles and goals of the UN Charter,” he said.
Israel, which is not a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, maintains a policy of strategic ambiguity regarding its nuclear capabilities but is believed – according to foreign sources – to maintain a stockpile of dozens of weapons. According to the U.S.-based Arms Control Association, “Israel is estimated to have 90 nuclear warheads, with fissile material stockpiles of over 200.”
Jerusalem has repeatedly warned against Tehran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons. In 2018, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that Israel’s Mossad intelligence service raided a secret location in Tehran that looked like “a dilapidated warehouse” and removed original documents on the nuclear weapons program to smuggle back to Israel in a one-night operation.
The documents showed that ”after signing the nuclear deal in 2015, Iran intensified its efforts to hide its secret files” and “moved its nuclear weapons files to a highly secret location in Tehran,” Netanyahu alleged.
Under the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) between Iran and six major powers, Iran had agreed to curb its nuclear program to make it harder for it to obtain an atomic weapon – an ambition it denies – in return for relief from U.S., European Union and United Nations sanctions.
Last year, then-Prime Minister Naftali Bennett released a tranche of what he said were pilfered International Atomic Energy Agency documents, after Tehran denied using reports illegally obtained from the UN nuclear watchdog in order to circumvent inspections of its nuclear program.
Speaking with Haaretz in 2021, former Mossad chief Yossi Cohen acknowledged that Iran has been enriching more uranium since the American withdrawal from the nuclear deal, a step that former U.S. President Trump took in 2018 with strong encouragement from Netanyahu.
As recently as this August, Netanyahu slammed reports that Iran was slowing its nuclear program as part of a deal with the United States, declaring that “agreements “hat do not dismantle Iran’s nuclear infrastructure do not stop its nuclear program, and only supply it with money that will go toward terror groups under the auspices of Iran.”
Continue reading at www.haaretz.com
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