Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists IT IS 5 MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT Nuclear notebook Israeli nuclear weapons, 2014

Although the Israeli government neither confirms nor denies that it possesses nuclear weapons, it is generally accepted by friend and foe alike that Israel is a nuclear-armed stateÑand has been so for nearly half a century. The basis for this conclusion has been strengthened significantly since our previous estimate in 2002, particu-larly thanks to new documents obtained by scholars under theUS Freedomof Information Act and other openly available sources.1 We conclude that many of the public claims about the size of the Israeli nuclear arsenal are exaggerated. We estimate that Israel has a stockpile of approximately 80 nuclear warheads for delivery by two dozen missiles, a couple of squadrons of aircraft, and perhaps a small number of sea-launched cruise missiles