Almost half of all Israelis would support a unilateral strike to prevent Iran obtaining the atomic bomb, an opinion poll carried out after Tuesday's nuclear deal between Tehran and major powers found.
Nearly three-quarters of respondents in the poll published by Maariv on Friday said they thought the agreement would accelerate Iran's development of a nuclear weapon, not prevent it as claimed by world powers.
Asked "Do you support independent military action by Israel against Iran if such action is needed to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon?," 47% said yes, 35% said no and 18% expressed no opinion.
Asked: "In your view, does the agreement that was signed bring Iran closer to obtaining a nuclear weapons capability?," 71% said yes.
The paper did not give a sample size or margin of error for the poll carried out by Panels Politics Polling Institute.
A similar poll was conducted by the Sarid Institute for Channel 10 on Wednesday, and found that almost 75% of Israelis oppose the Iran nuclear deal.
In that poll, a third of Israelis said that Israel should attack Iran's covert nuclear sites.
Despite the high level of concern in Israel, a Pew Research Center study found on Thursday that even more Americans (62%) are concerned about Iran's nuclear program than Israelis (53%).
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has hinted that Israel will take military action against the nuclear program of Iran, the leading state sponsor of terrorism, if it is needed.
He said Israel is not bound by the deal between Iran and the six world powers, and on Wednesday he said the agreement was "not the end of the story."
Raising concerns about the ability of an Israeli airstrike on covert nuclear sites to succeed, a top Iranian general announced on Thursday that Iran will unveil two new missile defense systems in early September, after earlier saying one of the system's will be Iran's version of the advanced Russian S-300 system.
It has been warned that the S-300, and likely the new Iranian Bavar 373 as well, would be able to block an Israeli or American airstrike aiming to take out Iran's covert nuclear program.
AFP contributed to this report.
