Israel tested a missile today, prompting speculation about its ability to launch nuclear strikes on Iran following Israeli warnings and accusations about Tehran's atomic ambitions.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert repeated on Monday that he would consider "all options" to prevent Iran developing nuclear weapons, a message he and his team conveyed to George W Bush when the US president visited Jerusalem a week ago.
But analysts were divided on the significance of the test and the Defence Ministry gave only few details. A former Israeli missile expert said: "There are no messages". But a serving defence official said Israel was "not just flexing its muscles".
Iran's president, who denies his country's nuclear programme has a military purpose, has in the past said the Jewish state should be "wiped off the map". The latest sign of tension with Israel, which is widely assumed to have the only nuclear arsenal in the Middle East, drove oil prices up by nearly 1 per cent.
"The Zionists have reached the end of the line," President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was quoted as telling a Palestinian ally, Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal, during a phone call to express concern at the latest violence in the Gaza Strip. Iran had no specific, immediate comment on the Israeli missile test.
Amateur photographs posted on Israeli news Web sites showed a white plume in the sky above central Israel, suggesting a test of a large missile rather than of smaller, anti-missile defensive rockets that Israel is also believed to be developing.
Israel Radio, the public broadcaster, said the missile was capable of carrying an "unconventional payload", an apparent reference to the nuclear warheads Israel is assumed to possess, though whose existence it has never publicly confirmed.