According to the Arms Control Association, Israel is estimated to have 90 nuclear warheads with stockpiles for about 200 weapons—though it does not admit nor deny possessing any nuclear weapons.
Qatar has called on Israel to join the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) while calling out its onslaught in the Gaza Strip that has killed more than 38,000 people in just over nine months.
The remarks were made on Wednesday by Qatar’s Ambassador to the Netherlands, Mutlaq Al Qahtani, during the 106th session of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons’ (OPCW) Executive Council in The Hague.
“Al Qahtani called on CWC’s non-state parties to join the convention, particularly addressing Israel, to make the Middle East a zone free of weapons of mass destruction, pointing out the brutal ‘war’ that Israel is committing against the Palestinian people in Gaza,” the Qatari foreign ministry said in a statement.
Al Qahtani, who is also Qatar’s representative for OPCW, noted that Israel has killed civilians by “prohibited weapons”, describing it as “a serious violation of international law and international humanitarian law”.
He also highlighted Qatar’s support for Palestine’s request to investigate “Israel’s use of prohibited weapons under international law and the relevant agreements” including CWC.
The CWC entered into force on April 29, 1997, with the aim to eliminate weapons of mass destruction by banning the “development, production, acquisition, stockpiling, retention, transfer or use of chemical weapons by States Parties.”
The Convention also incorporates the “challenge inspection” that would enable any state party to request an unannounced inspection.
While Israel signed the CWC, it has never ratified it. Israel did not join the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) despite it being known to possess nuclear weapons.
Since 2018, Israel has repeatedly voted against the annual United Nations General Assembly resolution that welcomes the adoption of the TPNW while calling upon all states to sign, ratify or adhere to it.
According to the Arms Control Association, Israel is estimated to have 90 nuclear warheads with stockpiles for about 200 weapons. Despite the numerous reports and evidence gathered over the past decades, Israel does not admit nor deny possessing any nuclear weapons.
Meanwhile, in 2021, an analysis of satellite photos conducted by the Associated Press found a secretive Israeli nuclear facility undergoing what appeared to be its “largest construction project in decades”.
The facility was near the notorious Shimon Peres Negev Nuclear Research Center, where labs and reactors can be found underground.
Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip, widely described as a genocide, has further proved its dangerous arms capabilities that pose a threat to the rest of the region while exposing the Western double standards in their stances towards the issue.
On April 24, Euro-Med Human Rights said that Israel dropped an estimated amount of more than 70,000 tonnes of explosives in the Gaza Strip since October 7, over three times more than the amount the United States dropped in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The figure has likely gone up amid the ongoing war, which entered its tenth month.
According to the International Rescue Committee, Israel dropped an estimate of 45,000 bombs—including ones manufactured and supplied by the U.S.—on the Gaza Strip within the first 89 days of the war alone.
According to the UN, the war has destroyed more than 80 percent of the Strip’s commercial facilities and more than 60 percent of residential buildings while displacing 1.9 million out of the 2.1 million population.
The cost of damage to Gaza’s infrastructure during the first four months of the war alone was estimated at $18.5bn, according to a March report by the World Bank and the UN.
A report by The Lancet on Friday found that the total death toll in the Gaza Strip, including indirect deaths, could reach 186,000, representing 8 percent of the besieged enclave’s population.
