Implications of a nuclear attack on Israeli territory

The end of World War II in 1945 coincided with the beginning of the nuclear arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union and the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948.

Since its detonation in the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the nuclear bomb has become the most powerful deterrent that any nation on the face of the Earth can possess.

At present, there are about 13,000 nuclear weapons in the world, mainly distributed between Russia and the United States, which have 90% of the entire nuclear arsenal, and the remaining 10% are distributed among China, France, the United Kingdom, Pakistan, India, Israel and North Korea.

This dangerous nuclear race has been characterized by extensive discussions and debates in different academic and political circles about the consequences of a full-scale nuclear war, especially between NATO countries and Russia. In contrast, there has been little discussion of the possibility of a nuclear detonation in the Middle East, mainly on Israeli soil despite the numerous armed conflicts between the State of Israel and neighboring countries, with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict being the main generator of these ongoing tensions in the region,

The change of regime in Iran in 1979 marked the end of the good relations that existed until then between Israel and Iran. This brought the beginning of Iran’s hostilities towards Israel which completely changed the panorama of geopolitical chess in the Middle East since the Iranian nuclear program, created in the 1950s for peaceful purposes with the collaboration of the United States, passed into the hands of a new declared enemy of the State of Israel.

Although Iran has denied any intention to make nuclear bombs, the reality is that the discovery in 2002 of clandestine centers, one for the production of uranium in Natanz, and a heavy water research reactor in Arak capable of producing several kilograms of plutonium, also necessary for the manufacture of nuclear bombs of an implosive type, generated the report in 2006 by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to the United Nations Security Council regarding the Iranian nuclear program.

Since then, the United States, the European Union and other nations such as Japan, Switzerland, South Korea, Australia, Canada and Norway have created tough economic sanctions against the Islamic Republic of Iran to curb possible clandestine nuclear weapons development.

This, coupled with the Iranian authorities’ warmongering rhetoric and publicly expressed desire to wipe Israel off the map, has meant that Israel has spared no effort in trying to prevent Iran, or any neighboring nation, from obtaining nuclear weapons.

However, considering that Israel’s territory is only 22.070 km2, the high population densities of both groups (442 inhabitants per km2 for Jews and 858 for Palestinians) and that virtually 9.2 million Israelis live within a few kilometers of 5.4 million Palestinians, (mostly concentrated in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank), if Iran or any enemy country in the region obtain nuclear weapons, how beneficial to the Palestinian cause and its existence would the use of tactical or strategic nuclear devices on Israeli soil be?

For example, the city of Jerusalem, which is sacred to Jews, Christians and Muslims, has about 1 million inhabitants, a third of whom are Palestinians. From any point of view, it cannot be a nuclear target for Israel’s enemies.

In either case, no matter how many kilotons, any nuclear explosion in Israel would immediately kill or injure two populations, affecting the economy and environment of the region, and thus the crops and sources of fresh water needed to feed Israelis and Palestinians. Although the movement of tens of thousands of Palestinian workers into Israeli territory has been suspended since the Hamas attack on October 7 last year, affecting various sectors of the Israeli economy and the income of thousands of Palestinian families, a nuclear attack on Israeli territory will eventually destroy this symbiotic relationship.

On the other hand, Israel’s response would be immediate and devastating, since it has about 90 nuclear warheads that can be precisely detonated in any city in the Middle East as retaliation.

This geographical, demographic and economic relationship between Israelis and Palestinians means that the issue of ethnic cleansing, unconventional or even conventional means of war on both sides, must always be off the table.

Despite the great differences between Israelis and Palestinians, they must ultimately recognize that politically, they need each other in order to exist and live together on that small piece of land so contested since the beginning of humanity itself. Once they can come to an agreement, extremist speeches both inside and outside Israel and the fear of nuclear war in the region must end, and whose political, economic, environmental and public health consequences would unimaginably exceed those of the current ongoing conflict in the region.