TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Israel says it is determined to destroy Iran’s nuclear program because its archenemy's furtive efforts to build an atomic weapon are a threat to its existence.
What’s not-so-secret is that for decades Israel has been believed to be the Middle East’s only nation with nuclear weapons, even though its leaders have refused to confirm or deny their existence.
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FILE - Israeli air defense system fires to intercept missiles during an Iranian attack over Tel Aviv, Israel, Thursday, June 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Leo Correa, File)
FILE - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shows an illustration as he describes his concerns over Iran's nuclear ambitions during his address to the 67th session of the United Nations General Assembly at U.N. headquarters, Sept. 27, 2012. (AP Photo/Richard Drew, File)
FILE - Israeli navy sailors stand atop the submarine "Rahav" upon its arrival at the military port in Haifa, Israel, on Jan. 12, 2016. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit, File)
FILE - A view of Israel's Sorek nuclear reactor center near the central Israeli town of Yavne, on July 5, 2004. (AP Photo, File)
FILE - This file image made from a video aired Friday, Jan. 7, 2005, by Israeli television station Channel 10, shows what the television station claims is Israel's nuclear facility in the southern Israeli town of Dimona, the first detailed video of the site ever shown to the public. (Channel 10 via AP, File)
Israel's ambiguity has enabled it to bolster its deterrence against Iran and other enemies, experts say, without triggering a regional nuclear arms race or inviting preemptive attacks.
Israel is one of just five countries that aren’t party to a global nuclear nonproliferation treaty. That relieves it of international pressure to disarm, or even to allow inspectors to scrutinize its facilities.
Critics in Iran and elsewhere have accused Western countries of hypocrisy for keeping strict tabs on Iran's nuclear program — which its leaders insist is only for peaceful purposes — while effectively giving Israel's suspected arsenal a free pass.
On Sunday, the U.S. military struck three nuclear sites in Iran, inserting itself into Israel’s effort to destroy Iran’s program.
Here's a closer look at Israel's nuclear program:
Israel opened its Negev Nuclear Research Center in the remote desert city of Dimona in 1958, under the country's first leader, Prime Minister David Ben Gurion. He believed the tiny fledgling country surrounded by hostile neighbors needed nuclear deterrence as an extra measure of security. Some historians say they were meant to be used only in case of emergency, as a last resort.
After it opened, Israel kept the work at Dimona hidden for a decade, telling United States’ officials it was a textile factory, according to a 2022 article in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, an academic journal.
Relying on plutonium produced at Dimona, Israel has had the ability to fire nuclear warheads since the early 1970s, according to that article, co-authored by Hans M. Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project with the Federation of American Scientists, and Matt Korda, a researcher at the same organization.
Israel's policy of ambiguity suffered a major setback in 1986, when Dimona’s activities were exposed by a former technician at the site, Mordechai Vanunu. He provided photographs and descriptions of the reactor to The Sunday Times of London.
Vanunu served 18 years in prison for treason, and is not allowed to meet with foreigners or leave the country.
Experts estimate Israel has between 80 and 200 nuclear warheads, although they say the lower end of that range is more likely.
Israel also has stockpiled as much as 1,110 kilograms (2,425 pounds) of plutonium, potentially enough to make 277 nuclear weapons, according to the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a global security organization. It has six submarines believed to be capable of launching nuclear cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles believed to be capable of launching a nuclear warhead up to 6,500 kilometers (4,000 miles), the organization says.
Germany has supplied all of the submarines to Israel, which are docked in the northern city of Haifa, according to the article by Kristensen and Korda.
In the Middle East, where conflicts abound, governments are often unstable, and regional alliances are often shifting, nuclear proliferation is particularly dangerous, said Or Rabinowitz, a scholar at Jerusalem's Hebrew University and a visiting associate professor at Stanford University.
“When nuclear armed states are at war, the world always takes notice because we don’t like it when nuclear arsenals ... are available for decision makers,” she said.
Rabinowitz says Israel's military leaders could consider deploying a nuclear weapon if they found themselves facing an extreme threat, such as a weapon of mass destruction being used against them.
Three countries other than Israel have refused to sign the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons: India, Pakistan and South Sudan. North Korea has withdrawn. Iran has signed the treaty, but it was censured earlier this month, shortly before Israel launched its operation, by the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog — a day before Israel attacked — for violating its obligations.
Israel's policy of ambiguity has helped it evade greater scrutiny, said Susie Snyder at the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, a group that works to promote adherence to the U.N. treaty.
Its policy has also shined a light on the failure of Western countries to rein in nuclear proliferation in the Middle East, she said.
They “prefer not to be reminded of their own complicity,” she said.
This story has been updated to correct that the U.N. nuclear watchdog’s censure was earlier this month, not last week.
FILE - Israeli air defense system fires to intercept missiles during an Iranian attack over Tel Aviv, Israel, Thursday, June 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Leo Correa, File)
FILE - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shows an illustration as he describes his concerns over Iran's nuclear ambitions during his address to the 67th session of the United Nations General Assembly at U.N. headquarters, Sept. 27, 2012. (AP Photo/Richard Drew, File)
FILE - Israeli navy sailors stand atop the submarine "Rahav" upon its arrival at the military port in Haifa, Israel, on Jan. 12, 2016. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit, File)
FILE - A view of Israel's Sorek nuclear reactor center near the central Israeli town of Yavne, on July 5, 2004. (AP Photo, File)
FILE - This file image made from a video aired Friday, Jan. 7, 2005, by Israeli television station Channel 10, shows what the television station claims is Israel's nuclear facility in the southern Israeli town of Dimona, the first detailed video of the site ever shown to the public. (Channel 10 via AP, File)
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — A shooter dressed in black killed at least two people and wounded eight others at Brown University on Saturday during final exams on the Ivy League campus, authorities said, and police were searching for the suspect.
University President Christina Paxson said she was told that all 10 people who were shot were students. Another person was injured by fragments from the shooting, authorities said.
Officers scattered across the campus and into an affluent neighborhood filled with historic and stately brick homes, searching academic buildings, backyards and porches for hours late into the night after the shooting erupted in the afternoon.
The suspect was a male in dark clothing who was last seen leaving the engineering building where the attack happened, said Timothy O’Hara, deputy chief of Providence police.
Some witnesses told them the suspect, who could be in his 30s, may have been wearing a camouflage mask, O'Hara said.
Investigators were not yet sure how the shooter got inside the first-floor classroom. Outer doors of the building were unlocked, but rooms being used for final exams required badge access, Providence's mayor said.
Authorities believe the shooter used a handgun, according to a law enforcement official who was not authorized to discuss an ongoing investigation and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Rhode Island has some of the strictest gun laws in the U.S. Last spring the Democratic-controlled Legislature passed an assault weapon ban that will prohibit the sale and manufacturing of certain high-powered firearms, but not their possession, starting next July.
“The unthinkable has happened,” Democratic Rhode Island Gov. Dan McKee said.
Mayor Brett Smiley said a shelter-in-place remained in effect and encouraged people living near the campus to stay inside or not return home until it is lifted. Streets that normally bustle with activity on weekends were eerily quiet.
“We have all available resources” to find the suspect, Smiley said.
Emma Ferraro, a chemical engineering student, was in the engineering building’s lobby working on a final project when she heard loud pops coming from the east side.
Once she realized they were gunshots, she darted for the door and ran to a nearby building where she was waited for a couple of hours.
Eight people with gunshot wounds were taken to Rhode Island Hospital, where six were in critical but stable condition, according to Kelly Brennan, a spokesperson for the hospital. Another was in critical condition and one was stable, she said.
University officials initially told students and staff that a suspect was in custody, before later saying that was not the case. The mayor said a person preliminarily thought to be involved was detained but was later determined to have no involvement.
Nearly five hours after the shooting, officers in tactical gear led students out of some campus buildings and into a fitness center.
The shooting occurred in the Barus & Holley building, a seven-story complex that houses the School of Engineering and physics department. According to the university’s website, the building includes more than 100 laboratories, dozens of classrooms and offices.
Engineering design exams were underway there when the shooting occurred.
Brown senior biochemistry student Alex Bruce was working on a final research project in his dorm directly across the street from the building when he heard sirens outside and received a text about an active shooter shortly after 4 p.m.
“I’m just in here shaking,” he said, watching through the window as a half-dozen armed officers in tactical gear surrounded his dorm. He said he feared for a friend who he thought was inside the engineering building at the time.
Students in a nearby lab hid under desks and turned off the lights after receiving an alert about the shooting, said Chiangheng Chien, a doctoral student in engineering who was about a block away from the scene.
Mari Camara, 20, a junior from New York City, was coming out of the library and rushed inside a taqueria to seek shelter. She spent more than three hours there, texting friends while police searched the campus.
“Everyone is the same as me, shocked and terrified that something like this happened,” she said.
President Donald Trump told reporters that he had been briefed on the shooting and “all we can do right now is pray for the victims.”
Brown, the seventh oldest higher education institution in the U.S., is one of the nation's most prestigious colleges, with roughly 7,300 undergraduates and more than 3,000 graduate students. Tuition, housing and other fees run to nearly $100,000 per year, according to the university.
Durkin Richer reported from Washington. Associated Press journalists Mike Balsamo and Seung Min Kim in Washington; Hannah Schoenbaum in Salt Lake City; Jack Dura in Bismarck, North Dakota; Martha Bellisle in Seattle; and John Seewer in Toledo, Ohio, contributed.
Students are escorted by law enforcement officers to a building at Brown University after a shooting, Saturday, Dec. 13, 2025, in Providence, R.I.. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)
A law enforcement official walks past articles of clothing on a sidewalk near an entrance to Brown University, Saturday, Dec. 13, 2025, in Providence, R.I., during the investigation of a shooting. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)
Law enforcement officials carry rifles while walking on a street in a neighborhood near Brown University in Providence, R.I., on Saturday, Dec. 13, 2025 during the investigation of a shooting. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)
Law enforcement officials walk near an entrance to Brown University in Providence, R.I., on Saturday, Dec. 13, 2025, during the investigation of a shooting. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)
Emergency personnel gather on Waterman Street at Brown University in Providence, R.I., on Saturday, Dec. 13, 2025, during the investigation of a shooting. (AP Photo/Mark Stockwell)
Emergency personnel gather on Waterman Street at Brown University in Providence, R.I., on Saturday, Dec. 13, 2025, during the investigation of a shooting. (AP Photo/Mark Stockwell)
Law enforcement officials carrying weapons gather near Brown University in Providence, R.I., on Saturday, Dec. 13, 2025, during the investigation of a shooting. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)
Ambulances line Hope Street at Brown University in Providence, R.I., Saturday, Dec. 13, 2025, during reports of a shooting. (AP Photo/Mark Stockwell)
Emergency personnel gather at Hope and Waterman Streets at Brown University in Providence, R.I., Saturday, Dec. 13, 2025, during reports of a shooting. (AP Photo/Mark Stockwell)
Ambulances line Hope Street at Brown University in Providence, R.I., Saturday, Dec. 13, 2025, during reports of a shooting. (AP Photo/Mark Stockwell)
Emergency personnel gather at Hope and Waterman Streets at Brown University in Providence, R.I., Saturday, Dec. 13, 2025, during reports of a shooting. (AP Photo/Mark Stockwell)
In this image from video, law enforcement officials gather outside the Brown University campus in Providence, R.I., on Saturday, Dec. 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Kimberlee Kruesi)
FILE - The logo for Brown University is displayed at the school's campus in Providence, R.I., on Wednesday, April 25, 2018. (AP Photo/Steven Senne, File)
