For some reason, these images only won the attention of the international media now, revving up the rumor mill. The images show excavations as long as a soccer field and 20 meters, or four to five stories, deep underground. One of them, Institute 2, descends six stories below ground and contains production halls for fissile material, including plutonium extraction facilities. Following his leaks to the media, on September 30, , Vanunu was kidnapped in Rome by Mossad agents, who brought him by ship to Israel, where he was tried and sentenced to 18 years in prison.
Since his release in he has been banned from leaving the country. In follow-up AP stories, the hypothesis was raised that the expansion at Dimona is for a new modern site for treating radioactive waste. In addition to serving the nuclear reactor, the landfill is used to store radioactive waste from all over the country, including waste isotopes from nuclear-medicine departments at hospitals.
For years, the radioactive waste was buried in metal barrels deep underground at the research center. As with any sort of waste removal, the need to remove and bury radioactive waste keeps growing, necessitating more space.
Even believes that this accounts for the construction at the reactor. In , Zvi Kamil, a founder of the Dimona reactor, told me that years earlier the metal barrels were replaced by glass containers that significantly reduced the risk of seepage and pollution.
For 16 years Kamil, who died in , headed the Committee for Nuclear Safety composed of representatives from the Israel Atomic Energy Commission, the Environment Ministry and other officials.
Both the commission and the committee oversee the safety of the site at Dimona and the much smaller Soreq Nuclear Research Center near the coast south of Tel Aviv.
Construction of the Dimona reactor began in and was finished in , in accordance with a secret and since revealed decision by the French government. French companies did the construction work, similar to other reactors around the world.
These reports, along with the information supplied by Vanunu, suggest that Israel used the reactor to produce plutonium bombs and bombs based on enriched uranium.
This was at the height of the military, scientific and nuclear cooperation with the apartheid regime. Trump-era change in US law means high-quality commercial images available; security experts warn it could make Israel more vulnerable.
By TOI staff. McKenzie tells Armed Services Committee anti-aircraft rocket not deliberately fired into Israeli territory, went awry due to lack of capability in hitting attacking jets. A soccer field-sized dig, stories deep: Israel expands Dimona nuclear facility.
Reactor appears to be getting most extensive new construction work in decades, satellite photos show; reason unclear. By Jon Gambrell. Zarif accuses West of hypocrisy over report Israel expands Dimona nuclear center. Iranian foreign minister tweets link to Guardian report that construction work at top-secret Israeli facility visible in satellite imagery, asks why world leaders are silent.
The defence minister, Benny Gantz, claimed the missile had landed in Israel as a result of errant Syrian anti-aircraft fire. This is a slightly more complex case. The incident follows the publication of an analysis in an Iranian newspaper at the weekend that called for the Dimona reactor to be targeted to avenge an apparent Israeli sabotage operation at the Natanz nuclear site in Iran a fortnight ago.
Syria is a staunch ally of Iran, and Iranian forces use Syrian territory to stockpile weapons to supply to its Lebanese proxy, Hezbollah. Directly firing a large missile at Dimona could have been a trigger for such an escalation.
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