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While the government insists that no new arms licenses had been issued since 7 October 2023, trade and customs data tell a different story, one involving fertilizer-grade explosives precursors, detonating cords, and tritium-bearing compounds with potential nuclear applications.
Official Parliamentary (Senate) Figures Quoting Customs / Comtrade
The quotations below come from the Senato della Repubblica Resoconto Stenografico, 324ª Seduta, 3 luglio 2025 (Allegato A)
Commodity | HS Heading / Chapter | Official Senate quotation (in Italian) | Key figures | Citation (page 79) |
Detonating cords | HS 3603 | “Nel 2024 l’Italia ha iniziato a esportare cordoni detonanti verso Israele, inviando complessivamente 140 tonnellate per un valore di € 2 078 458.” | 140 t · € 2.08 M (2024) | lines 2491–2494 |
Ammonium nitrate | HS 310230 | “Da novembre 2023 a marzo 2025, l’Italia ha esportato 5 980 tonnellate (classificato come ‘concimi’: nitrato di ammonio non in soluzione acquosa, N > 34 %).” | 5 980 t (2023–2025) | lines 2492–2497 |
Compounds containing tritium | HS Ch. 28 / 2844 | “Nel 2024 le vendite a Israele di composti contenenti trizio hanno raggiunto un valore di € 1 485 587, per un totale di 288 kg; nel primo trimestre 2025 € 686 411, +276 % sul periodo 2024.” | 288 kg · € 1.49 M (2024); € 0.69 M Q1 2025 | lines 2499–2504 |
HS Code Mapping (Classification Checks)
HS Code | Definition (EU Combined Nomenclature / UN Comtrade) |
310230 | “Ammonium nitrate (whether or not in aqueous solution).” |
3603 / 36032000 | “Safety fuses; detonating cords; percussion or ignition caps; electric detonators.” |
2844 | “Radioactive chemical elements and isotopes; and their compounds.” (Covers tritium and its compounds.) |
These mappings confirm that the commodities mentioned in the Senate record fall within dual-use or explosive-precursor categories under EU and UN customs standards.
1) Ammonium nitrate, the “precursor” with many faces
What it is: a common agricultural fertilizer that, at high concentrations or when mixed with fuel, becomes a powerful explosive precursor.
Warlike uses:
Bulk explosive production: In combat or insurgent contexts, concentrated ammonium nitrate can be one main ingredient in large-volume explosives. When combined with a separate fuel source and initiated properly, it can produce large blast effects useful for demolitions, vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices (VBIEDs), and large-scale sabotage.
Mass casualty / area denial: Because it can be produced or assembled in large quantities and dispersed in vehicles or buildings, explosives based on ammonium nitrate have been used to cause widespread structural damage and civilian casualties.
Military logistics multiplier: Large quantities shipped to an actor at war can be stockpiled and converted into military-usable charges, munitions fillers, or demolition charges, making it a strategic commodity rather than a simple agricultural input.
Why it’s sensitive
Dual-use nature: It’s legal and common in agriculture but readily convertible to explosives. That puts it squarely in “dual-use” controls: legitimate trade is allowed, but the potential for diversion to weapon use is high.
Scale matters: Small quantities for farms are normal; thousands of tonnes moving to a conflict zone greatly raise the risk that material will be diverted to military ends.
2) Detonating cord, the precision initiator
What it is: a flexible cord containing a high-energy explosive core, designed to transmit a detonation wave rapidly along its length.
Warlike uses
Initiation and timing: Detonating cord is widely used to precisely synchronize the detonation of multiple charges, useful for breaching fortifications, demolishing structures, or triggering shaped charges at exact moments.
Charge linking: In military engineering or munitions manufacture, detonating cord links multiple explosive charges so they detonate as a single, coherent event; this increases destructive effect and allows controlled sequencing.
Munitions and demolition: Military ordnance, demolition teams, and certain munitions systems rely on reliable detonators and cords for safe, predictable initiation. In the wrong hands, the same cord can make improvised munitions far more effective and reliable.
Why it’s sensitive
Limited civilian use: Outside controlled industries (mining, specialized demolition) detonating cord has little legitimate civilian application, so exports to a country at war raise immediate red flags.
Force multiplier: Because it makes explosive charges easier to control and combine, it increases the lethality and tactical flexibility of explosive devices.
3) Tritium compounds, the isotope with strategic roles
What it is: tritium is a radioactive isotope of hydrogen used in small commercial devices (illumination, research) and in specialized nuclear technologies.
Warlike uses
Nuclear weapons role (boosting): In modern nuclear weapons science, tritium can be used in very small quantities to “boost” fission devices, increasing yield and efficiency. That is a highly specialized, strategic application tied directly to nuclear weapons capability.
Neutron sources and specialized components: Tritium can be used in devices that produce neutrons or in specialized sensors and guidance technologies; some of those have direct military or dual-use applications.
Extended technical advantage: Access to tritium in appreciable amounts supports advanced weaponization or certain war-related technologies that civilian industries rarely need at scale.
Why it’s sensitive
Proliferation risk: Unlike fertilizers or detonating cord, tritium is specifically flagged in many non-proliferation regimes because of its direct connection to nuclear weapons technology.
Regulatory oversight: Transfers of radioactive isotopes are subject to stricter international controls and notification requirements precisely because of these strategic implications.
Legal and Political Ramifications
Under Law 185/1990, Italy prohibits arms exports to states engaged in conflict “in violation of Article 51 of the UN Charter.”
The law covers military goods and munitions, but not all dual-use items.
If a shipment is labeled as fertilizer or chemical compound, it bypasses the inter-ministerial UAMA authorization process.
Critics argue this distinction undermines the spirit of the law.
Civil-society groups such as Rete Italiana Pace e Disarmo and Weapon Watch have called for a moratorium on dual-use exports to Israel, pending independent verification of end-use.
The Senate record also references a 4 February 2025 police investigation in northern Italy that uncovered 13 tonnes of forged and semi-finished cannon components, destined for an Israeli subcontractor, exported without authorization.
The case, involving Valforge S.r.l., allegedly relied on intermediaries in Eastern Europe to disguise the military nature of the parts. Although separate from the chemical exports, the episode illustrates how civil classifications can conceal military-linked trade.
Conclusion
Between late 2023 and early 2025, Italy exported nearly 6 000 tonnes of ammonium nitrate, 140 tonnes of detonating cords, and hundreds of kilograms of tritium-bearing compounds to Israel.
Each shipment was recorded in official statistics, none was publicly debated.
The data retrieved from WITS / UN Comtrade and the Senate’s July 2025 transcript provide verifiable evidence of these flows.
While formally classified as “civilian” exports, they illustrate the porous line between civilian and military trade in modern conflicts.
As long as such exports remain hidden behind technical HS codes and bureaucratic language, Italy’s stated commitment to peace and human-rights law will ring hollow.
Transparency, not denial, is the first step toward aligning national practice with international principle.
