"Alleged collaboration with Israel[edit]
See also: Israel–South Africa Agreement
David Albright and Chris McGreal have claimed that South African projects to develop nuclear weapons during the 1970s and 1980s were undertaken with some cooperation from Israel.[11][12][13] The United Nations Security Council Resolution 418 of 4 November 1977 introduced a mandatory arms embargo against South Africa, also requiring all states to refrain from "any co-operation with South Africa in the manufacture and development of nuclear weapons".[14]

According to the Nuclear Threat Initiative, in 1977 Israel traded 30 grams of tritium for 50 tonnes of South African uranium[citation needed] and in the mid-1980s assisted with the development of the RSA-3 and RSA-4 ballistic missiles, which are similar to Israeli Shavit and Jericho missiles.[15] Also in 1977, according to foreign press reports, it was suspected that South Africa signed a pact with Israel that included the transfer of military technology and the manufacture of at least six nuclear bombs.[16]

In September 1979, a US Vela satellite detected a double flash over the Indian Ocean that was suspected, but never confirmed to be a nuclear test, despite extensive air sampling by WC-135 aircraft of the United States Air Force. If the Vela Incident was a nuclear test, South Africa is one of the countries, possibly in collaboration with Israel, that is suspected of carrying it out. No official confirmation of its being a nuclear test has been made by South Africa, and expert agencies[who?] have disagreed on their assessments. In 1997, South African Deputy Foreign Minister Aziz Pahad stated that South Africa had conducted a test, but later retracted his statement as being a report of rumours.[17]

In February 1994 Commodore Dieter Gerhardt, former commander of South Africa's Simon's Town naval base who was later convicted of spying for the USSR, was reported to have said:

"        Although I was not directly involved in planning or carrying out the operation, I learned unofficially that the flash was produced by an Israeli-South African test code-named Operation Phoenix. The explosion was clean and was not supposed to be detected. But they were not as smart as they thought, and the weather changed – so the Americans were able to pick it up.[18][19]        "
In 2000, Gerhardt claimed that Israel agreed in 1974 to arm eight Jericho II missiles with "special warheads" for South Africa.[20]

In 2010, The Guardian released South African government documents that it alleged confirmed the existence of Israel's nuclear arsenal. According to The Guardian, the documents were associated with an Israeli offer to sell South Africa nuclear weapons in 1975.[21][22] Israel categorically denied these allegations and said that the documents do not indicate any offer for a sale of nuclear weapons. Israeli President Shimon Peres said that The Guardian article was based on "selective interpretation... and not on concrete facts."[23] Avner Cohen, author of Israel and the Bomb and the forthcoming The Worst-Kept Secret: Israel's Bargain with the Bomb, said "Nothing in the documents suggests there was an actual offer by Israel to sell nuclear weapons to the regime in Pretoria."[24]"