Nuclear weapons and Israel
The State of Israel is widely believed to possess nuclear weapons. Estimates of Israel's stockpile range between 90 and 400 nuclear warheads, and the country is believed to possess the ability to deliver them in several methods, including by aircraft, as submarine-launched cruise missiles, and via the Jericho series of intermediate to intercontinental range ballistic missiles. Its first deliverable nuclear weapon is thought to have been completed in late 1966 or early 1967; which would make it the sixth country in the world to have developed them.
Kennedy and Ben-Gurion in 1961.
Completed Dimona complex as seen by US Corona satellite on November 11, 1968
Mordechai Vanunu's photograph of a Negev Nuclear Research Center glove box containing nuclear materials in a model bomb assembly, one of about 60 photographs he later gave to the British press
Submarine-launched cruise missile
A submarine-launched cruise missile (SLCM) is a cruise missile that is launched from a submarine. Current versions are typically standoff weapons known as land-attack cruise missiles (LACMs), which are used to attack predetermined land targets with conventional or nuclear payloads. Anti-ship cruise missiles (ASCMs) are also used, and some submarine-launched cruise missiles have variants for both functions.
HMS Astute launching a Tomahawk in 2011
The fore section of USS Santa Fe (SSN-763), a Los Angeles-class submarine with the doors of the vertical launching system for Tomahawk missiles in the open position. The method of firing from VLS is in the minority.
