As instability grows in the Middle East, fears have been raised over Iran’s nuclear capabilities. What has happened between Israel and Iran? Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was killed in Iranian capital, Tehran, last month. While Israel has not taken public responsibility for the attack, tensions between the two countries have increased.
Global leaders, including Prime Minister Keir Starmer, have urged Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian to stand down its ongoing threats of a military attack on Israel, which the president has refused to do. The US has warned it is preparing for “a significant set of attacks” on Israel by Iran or its proxies in the coming days. Meanwhile, the Hezbollah movement in Lebanon has also warned it could retaliate after one of its top commanders was killed by an Israeli air strike in Beirut.
What are Iran’s nuclear capabilities? While Iran technically is not a nuclear power, it is believed it has the capability to build a nuclear weapon in a year – and questions have been ongoing over the past few years about whether it is secretly preparing to do so. It is, however, internationally prohibited from doing so. The Iran nuclear deal - the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) - saw an agreement reached in 2015 between Iran, the UK, China, France, Germany, Russia and the US to limit the Iranian nuclear programme in exchange for sanctions relief.
However, under the leadership of Donald Trump, the US withdrew in 2018. Iran maintains that its nuclear programme is peaceful and that it has no plans to develop nuclear weapons. However, the UK government has said Iran has continued to violate the terms of the agreement over the past five years.
The country has lifted the cap on its stockpile of uranium, which is now 18 times the level permitted; increased its enrichment activities to 60 per cent, significantly beyond the 3.67 per cent permitted under the deal; expanded its enrichment capabilities and resumed activity at nuclear facilities that were previously prohibited. The International Atomic Energy Agency has been prevented from satisfactorily monitoring Iran’s nuclear activities since February 2021.
Andrea Stricker, deputy director of the Nonproliferation and Biodefense Program and a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), warned in an analysis document that Iran could be closer to creating nuclear weapons than before. She said: “In June, Tehran installed numerous new uranium-enrichment centrifuges at its Natanz enrichment plant and its underground Fordow site, more than tripling the latter’s capacity to produce uranium enriched to 60 per cent purity. “Amassing 60 per cent enriched material puts Iran days from enriching that uranium to 90 per cent, the level needed for atomic weapons.
As a result, the Islamic Republic’s so-called “breakout time” - specifically, the amount of time the regime needs to produce weapons-grade uranium for multiple nuclear devices - may have dropped significantly.” What is happening between Israel and Hamas at the moment? As this goes on, the US is making last-ditch attempts to stabilise the situation in the Middle East by forging a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas. President Joe Biden has spoken with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a bid to get the two parties to agree to a “bridging proposal” that could lead to a ceasefire in the war in Gaza.
Hamas and Israel have signalled challenges remain amid significant differences over the presence of Israeli troops in two strategic corridors in Gaza and other issues, dimming Mr Biden’s hopes that a deal can soon be reached..
