Iran Gives Hizballah Missiles to strike Israel’s Dimona Nuclear Reactor

In the last two weeks, Iran has supplied the Lebanese Hizballah with a battery of upgraded Zelzal surface missiles whose range of 350-400 km brings Israel’s nuclear reactor in Dimona within reach. This is reported exclusively by DEBKA-Net-Weekly.

The battery consists of 16 missiles which, fired from northern or central Lebanon, can hit the Negev town of Beersheba which is some 34 km west of the nuclear center. Iran knows that a missile strike even if it is a direct hit will not do much harm because the nuclear installations are buried deep underground and guarded by anti-missile defenses. But both Tehran and Hizballah are after the psychological impact on Islamic and world opinion of aiming the first Muslim missile against Israel’s atomic center.

Saddam tried and missed. His Scud was meant to hit the reactor’s dome and crack it. It landed instead near the Dead Sea town of Arad.

According to DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s military sources, the Iranian missile battery is still in Syria, stored at the Qusayr air base southwest of Homs, where it is thought to be safe from Israeli air attack. Qusayr is situated opposite the north Lebanese town of Hermel and Jebel Akroum, where Hizballah has stationed its long range missile Naziat Brigade, which is armed with less advanced Zelzal-2 missiles whose range is 250 km.

Israeli sources do not rule out the possibility of Syria allowing the Naziat Brigade to shoot the new upgraded missiles from Syrian-Lebanese border, so that the launcher can be pulled back into Syria the moment it is fired and whipped out of reach of the Israeli air force.