Israeli Dolphin submarine

Mark Curtis – Declassified UK.org March 26, 2025

When the government recently published its arms exports data for the period July to September last year, one item caught the eye: a licence to sell Israel £7.1m worth of “technology for submarines”.

Israel’s submarines are believed to house nuclear arms.

The government data included a footnote stating that the licence related to “marketing and promotional purposes, including demonstration to potential customers, temporary exhibitions”.

Whatever that might mean, what is clearer is that British ministers have authorised 77 export licences to supply Israel with components for its submarines since 2010. This makes that category of equipment the fourth most numerous for all UK military exports to Israel.

The total value of these licences is £8.96m, Declassified has established. Two of the licences are, however, “open” rather than “single”, meaning that unlimited quantities and values of such equipment can be exported from Britain.

These licences for Israel’s submarines were excluded from the UK’s restrictions on exports of military equipment for Israel announced last September during its bombardment of Gaza.

Also excluded were components from Israel’s F-35 warplanes used to devastating effect in the territory.

Israeli military officials are doubtless pleased that British companies can continue to support their submarines – since their underwater and nuclear arms programmes are both being upgraded.

Nuclear dolphins

Research institute SIPRI estimates that Israel has at least 90 nuclear warheads but that the number could reach as high as 300.

While Israel continues to deny it has nuclear arms, SIPRI says it is “believed to be modernizing its nuclear arsenal and appears to be upgrading its plutonium production reactor site at Dimona” in the Negev desert.

The Stockholm-based institute also notes unconfirmed reports that “all or some of the submarines have been equipped to launch an indigenously produced nuclear-armed sea-launched variant of the Popeye cruise missile, giving Israel a sea-based nuclear strike capability”.

It “assesses that around 10 cruise missile warheads might be available for the submarine fleet”.

Based in Haifa on the Mediterranean coast, Israel’s navy, which has for years enforced the illegal blockade of Gaza, now operates six ‘Dolphin class’ submarines built in Germany. In 2022, Israel signed a further agreement with Berlin to procure three new, ‘Dakar class’, ships.

Various reports suggest that Israel’s submarines have been refitted to carry missiles armed with nuclear weapons. German magazine Der Spiegel reported in 2012 that “experts in Germany and Israel have confirmed that nuclear-tipped missiles have been deployed on the vessels”.

Its extensive investigation noted that Israeli arms firm Rafael “built the missiles for the nuclear weapons option” and that such cruise missiles have a range of around 1,500 miles and can reach Iran with a warhead weighing up to 200 kilogrammes.

The magazine quoted Hans Rühle, the head of the planning staff at the German Defence Ministry in the late 1980s, saying: “I assumed from the very beginning that the submarines were supposed to be nuclear-capable”.

Lothar Rühl, meanwhile, a former state secretary in the Defence Ministry, said that he never doubted that “Israel stationed nuclear weapons on the ships.”

Sophie Bolt, general secretary of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, told Declassified: “It is utterly chilling that, all the time the British government has been giving military assistance to Israel’s genocide against the Palestinian people, it has also been in effect helping Israel upgrade its deadly nuclear weapons force.

“Britain has to end its reckless complicity with Israel, which breaches international law and – given Israel’s expansionist plans – endangers the lives of all those across the Middle East.”

‘Armed with nuclear weapons’

Israel’s most recent, and sixth, submarine, known as the INS Drakon, is the country’s largest and was unveiled last November at the Kiel shipyard in northern Germany where it was built, and from where it will be delivered to Israel later this year.

“Israeli nuclear submarines have the capability to be armed with nuclear weapons as well as to perform clandestine spying missions all over the world”, the Jerusalem Post reported at the time.

Israeli ministers may not see their nuclear weapons just as weapons of last resort, to be used if the country were threatened with annihilation.

In the months after the Hamas attacks on Israel in October 2023, several Israeli policymakers and commentators—including heritage minister Amihai Eliyahu who was later suspended from the cabinet—suggested that Israel should use nuclear arms against Hamas fighters in Gaza.

Whitehall in denial

The UK government has consistently refused to acknowledge the open secret that Israel possesses nuclear weapons. One reason Whitehall can be certain, however, is that it helped Israel acquire nuclear arms in the first place.

In the late 1950s, Britain sold Israel 20 tonnes of heavy water, a vital ingredient for the production of plutonium at Israel’s top secret Dimona nuclear site.

In fact, Declassified previously found that staff in the Foreign Office and Ministry of Defence have for over 40 years believed Israel has developed nuclear arms.

Britain has also aided Israel’s submarine development. Tel Aviv first acquired two British S-class submarines in the late 1950s, which Israel used in its wars in Lebanon from 1967 to the 1980s.

In the 1970s, the Vickers shipyard at Barrow-in-Furness – where UK submarines are now built – constructed three Israeli ‘Gal-class’ submarines designed by Germany.

Israel’s air-launched nuclear weapons may be stored at Tel Nof air base in central Israel. When its air force sent six F-15 fighters from Tel Nof to Britain for an exercise in 2019, a US official referred to this as Israel’s “nuclear squadron”.

One irony of the UK in effect aiding Israel’s submarine-based nuclear weapons programme is that London was a sponsor of the landmark 1995 United Nations General Assembly resolution calling for a nuclear weapons free zone in the Middle East.

The companies

UK government data is not so transparent as to list all the UK companies aiding Israel’s submarine development. And it has not been revealed which company secured the unusually large £7.1m licence last August.

Only five companies are mentioned as being awarded licences to Israel in the government data. These are Truflo Marine, Thompson Valves – both of which are part of IMI plc – Honeywell Control Systems, Tenmat and Hale Hamilton Valves.

Truflo and Thompson make valves for submarines. “Our IMI Truflo Marine valves have the high flow capability and fast shut off that is crucial to all critical systems at sea”, IMI says on its website.

Another valve producer, Hale Hamilton, says that “95% of the Western World Submarine fleets have Hale Hamilton High Pressure Air and/or Hydraulic Valves installed”.

Tenmat, a small firm based in Manchester, produces fire protection systems and Honeywell Control Systems, part of the giant US Honeywell conglomerate, produces electrical switches and sensors, among other things.

Its parent company Honeywell is part of the submarine design programme to build new vessels for Australia as part of the AUKUS alliance.

Declassified emailed the companies about their exports to Israel but only received a response from Hale Hamilton, which said that it did not respond to media enquiries.

Other UK exporters which supply Israel with military equipment and which also produce technology for submarines include Elbit Systems, BAE Systems and Babcock.

The later two are part of a trio of major companies – which also includes Rolls Royce – which are building the UK’s own new generation of nuclear-armed submarines.

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