Iran attacks Dimona, city hiding secret nuclear program over 60 years old

(Patria) - Around twenty people were injured in today's Iranian ballistic missile attack on Dimona in southern Israel, the Israeli emergency services announced.

More footage showing the impact of an Israeli ballistic missile in the southern Israeli city of Dimona. Israeli emergency services have said that ~20 people were lightly injured following the strike. Israel’s Home Front Command has said that they have dispatched search and rescue… pic.twitter.com/8UVBNXlpC5

— OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) March 21, 2026

Dimona is a city in southern Israel that houses the country's main nuclear facility. The facility in Dimona, built in the 1960s with French assistance, is considered key to Israel's policy of nuclear ambiguity.

According to widespread beliefs, it produces plutonium for an undeclared nuclear weapons program, with an arsenal estimated at 80 to 400 warheads.

According to data from the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation and the Nuclear Threat Initiative, it is estimated that Israel has at least 90 nuclear warheads and enough fissile material to produce several hundred more.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN's nuclear watchdog, states that 30 countries have the capacity to develop nuclear weapons, but only nine are known to possess them. According to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Israel has the second smallest arsenal among these nine – only North Korea has a smaller one.

Israel is one of only five countries – along with India, Pakistan, North Korea, and South Sudan – that have not signed the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), an international agreement that came into force in 1970.

It commits states to promoting the peaceful use of nuclear energy and preventing the spread of nuclear weapons. (Iran is a signatory to this treaty, but Israel and world powers accuse Tehran of violating it through unnecessary uranium enrichment to a level sufficient for making nuclear weapons.)

To accede to the NPT, Israel would have to abandon its nuclear weapons.