Israeli nuclear reactor, secret bases revealed by publicly-available satellite images

Detailed pictures of sites such as Israel’s only nuclear reactor and classified military bases can be bought legally from several companies.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

Israel has ignored for years the growing problem of the easy availability of highly detailed satellite imaging of its most sensitive above-ground sites, Ynet reported on Wednesday.

Pictures accurate to within 0.4 meter have been legally available from American commercial enterprises such as Google and Apple Maps since 2021, but were already on the market from non-American companies such as South Korea’s Kompsat for several years before that.

A 1997 law called the Kyl-Bingaman Amendment had specifically prohibited US authorities from granting a license for collecting or disseminating satellite imagery of Israel at a higher resolution than was available from non-American companies.

This helped Israel’s security as long as the Americans held the edge in such imaging, but by 2017, this was no longer the case, and four years ago, Congress changed the law to approve sales of imagery up to the 0.4-meter resolution limit.

This can put all military sites as well as the Shimon Peres Negev Nuclear Research Center near Dimona, which contains Israel’s only nuclear reactor, squarely in the crosshairs of any of Israel’s missile-equipped foes for just a few dollars per photo.

The Houthi terror group in Yemen, for example, which has launched dozens of ballistic missiles at the Jewish state over the past 18 months to support Hamas in the ongoing war in Gaza, repeatedly announces that it is aiming at military sites.

The Lebanese Shi’ite Hezbollah proxies of Iran have also fired attack drones and missiles aiming at such sensitive sites as the IDF’s headquarters in Tel Aviv and the huge chemical tanks in Haifa Bay, as well as threatening to go after Israel’s offshore natural gas rigs.

Iran itself launched two waves of hundreds of drones and guided missiles at Israel last year.

In all these cases, almost all the airborne threats were neutralized before reaching Israeli territory, but the potential danger of any future success is clear.

Ynet reported that both the IDF and the Defense Ministry refused to comment when asked about this national security issue, leading the media site to comment that “It appears the chosen approach is to ignore the problem — a strategy that has proven ineffective in recent years when dealing with security challenges.”

Since the government has very little to no leverage over commercial companies that are not under its jurisdiction, it would seem that Israel would have to move facilities underground or camouflage them in some way to evade satellites’ cameras, or else be well-prepared to defend them from attack when neither possibility exists.

While the first two options may be in the works, which would be highly classified information, Israel’s multi-layered anti-missile defense network is famed throughout the world for its proven, solid protection of the country.