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Israel expanding decades-old secret nuclear site in Negev Desert: report

The Dimona facility appears to be undergoing its largest construction in decades, but it's not clear why.
(FILES) A picture dated on September 8, 2002 shows a partial view of the Dimona nuclear power plant in the southern Israeli Negev desert. The plant was built with help from the French in the 1950's, when Paris was the main arms supplier to the Jewish state. The complex was described by Israel as various types of non-nuclear facilities until then Prime Minister David Ben Gurion said in December 1960 that it was a nuclear research center built for "peacful purposes." Israel is reconsidering its plans of nucle

Satellite photographs suggest Israel’s secretive Dimona nuclear facility in the Negev desert has undergone recent construction, possibly the largest work done on the site in several decades.

Images requested from Planet Labs, Inc., and published by The Associated Press show new digging near the Shimon Peres Negev Nuclear Research Center, which houses underground labs for converting the reactor’s spent fuel into weapons-grade plutonium.

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