Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s government has approved a plan proposed by his predecessor to prepare for a military option against Iran if it does not return in good faith to negotiations to salvage the 2015 nuclear deal.
The government earmarked an additional 5 billion shekels (USD1.5 billion) for building military capabilities to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities.
A report by the military correspondent of Israeli Channel 12, Nir Dvory, stated that the government has approved budgets dedicated to building capabilities to carry out a possible attack on Iran.
He stressed that the Israeli military establishment was confident that the budget was sufficient to build a force capable of confronting the Iranian nuclear program.
According to the report, the budget will be allocated to the purchase of special weapons, gathering intelligence, providing additional equipment and aircraft to the Israeli Air Force, and building an extensive intelligence database that would rely on satellites.
Former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government had started drawing up funding for the plan, but failed to adopt the general budget for two consecutive years.
In early July, the Chief of Staff of the Israeli army, Aviv Kochavi, paid an official visit to Washington, where he announced that his army had drawn up at least three military plans in order to thwart Tehran’s nuclear program.
Alex Fishman, a military analyst in Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper, explained that each of the military plans Kohavi talked about is independent of the other and different in terms of targeting Iran’s nuclear military capabilities.
He added that Israel intended to continue preparing for military options, regardless of the outcome of negotiations between Iran and the United States.
