51�Թ�

The Israeli military said it had accumulated intelligence showing that "concrete progress" had been made "in the Iranian regime's efforts to produce weapons components adapted for a nuclear bomb", including a uranium metal core and a neutron source initiator for triggering the nuclear explosion.

Nobody outside Iran wants the Islamic Republic to possess the nuclear bomb.

Hardline hawks inside Iran's security establishment have long argued that the best deterrence against future attacks by Israel or the US would be for it to acquire the nuclear bomb.

Whatever the final damage amounts to from Israel's Operation Rising Lion, if Iran's regime survives – and it has defied the odds before – then there is a risk it will now accelerate its race towards building and even testing a nuclear bomb.

But Netanyahu has been making the argument that Israel faces existential threat if Iran gets a nuclear bomb for many years.