Israel\u2019s unprecedented attacks on Iran had at their core an elusive and high-risk goal: eradicating the country\u2019s controversial nuclear program. <\/p>\n
Israel targeted three key Iranian nuclear facilities \u2013 Natanz, Isfahan and Fordow \u2013 and a number of top scientists involved in nuclear research and development. <\/p>\n
The extent of the damage \u2013 and whether Iran\u2019s nuclear program can survive \u2013 is not immediately clear. An Israeli military official said at a briefing Saturday that strikes on Iran\u2019s nuclear sites in Natanz and Isfahan were able to damage the sites \u201csignificantly;\u201d Iran said that damage to the facilities was limited but acknowledged the deaths of nine experts. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe are at a key point where, if we miss it, we will have no way to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons that will threaten our existence,\u201d Israel\u2019s Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Friday. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe have dealt with Iran\u2019s proxies over the past year and a half, but now we are dealing with the head of the snake itself.\u201d <\/p>\n
Iran insists its program is peaceful – here\u2019s what we know about the damage to the three sites. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis was a full-spectrum blitz,\u201d said another source familiar with the assessments. <\/p>\n
The strikes destroyed the above-ground part of Natanz\u2019s Pilot Fuel Enrichment Plant, a sprawling site that has been operating since 2003 and where Iran had been enriching uranium up to 60% purity, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Weapons-grade uranium is enriched to 90%. <\/p>\n
That aspect of the operation is crucial, because much of the Natanz facility is heavily fortified and underground, so wiping out the power to those parts of the facility is the most effective way to impact underground equipment and machinery. <\/p>\n
It does not appear that Israel damaged those underground parts of the plant directly, the IAEA said, but the loss of power to the underground cascade hall \u201cmay have damaged the centrifuges there.\u201d <\/p>\n
Natanz has six above-ground buildings and three underground buildings, two of which can hold 50,000 centrifuges, according to the non-profit Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI). Centrifuges are machines that can enrich uranium by spinning the gas at high speeds. <\/p>\n
There is no wider radiological impact. \u201cThe level of radioactivity outside the Natanz site has remained unchanged and at normal levels,\u201d the IAEA said. \u201cHowever, due to the impacts, there is radiological and chemical contamination inside the facilities in Natanz,\u201d it added \u2013 though the levels would be manageable. <\/p>\n
The extent of damage at the Isfahan nuclear site in central Iran was more difficult to parse in the hours after it was struck, with conflicting claims over the attack\u2019s impact emerging in Israel and Iran. <\/p>\n
Behrouz Kamalvandi, the spokesperson of Atomic Energy Organization of Iran said Saturday that damage at the site \u2013 Iran\u2019s largest nuclear research complex \u2013 was limited. <\/p>\n
Equipment at the two facilities was moved in anticipation of the strikes, Kamalvandi said. A shed at the facility caught fire, he added, and there is no risk of contamination. <\/p>\n
But Israel were more bullish; an IDF official said during a Saturday briefing that the site took significant damage. <\/p>\n
The facility was built with support from China and opened in 1984, the NTI says. According to the non-profit, 3,000 scientists are employed at Isfahan, and the site is \u201csuspected of being the center\u201d of Iran\u2019s nuclear program. <\/p>\n
It \u201coperates three small Chinese-supplied research reactors,\u201d as well as a \u201cconversion facility, a fuel production plant, a zirconium cladding plant, and other facilities and laboratories,\u201d the NTI says. <\/p>\n
At a Saturday briefing, an IDF official said Israel had \u201cconcrete intelligence\u201d that Iran was \u201cmoving forward to a nuclear bomb\u201d at the Isfahan facility. Despite advancing its uranium enrichment significantly, Iran has repeatedly said that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes and denied that it was developing an atomic bomb. <\/p>\n
The Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant is a far more difficult site to target. The plant is buried deep in the mountains near Qom, in northern Iran, and houses advanced centrifuges used to enrich uranium up to high grades of purity. <\/p>\n
Israel targeted the site during its Friday attacks, but the IAEA said it was not impacted and the IDF has not claimed any significant damage there. Iranian air defenses shot down an Israeli drone in the vicinity of the plant, Iranian state media Press TV reported Friday evening. <\/p>\n
Fordow\u2019s fate could be pivotal to the overall success of Israel\u2019s attacks. <\/p>\n
In 2023, the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed that uranium particles enriched to 83.7% purity \u2013 which is close to the 90% enrichment levels needed to make a nuclear bomb \u2013 had been found in Fordow. <\/p>\n
\u201cIf Fordow remains operational, Israel\u2019s attacks may barely slow Iran\u2019s path to the bomb,\u201d James M. Acton, the co-director of the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, wrote on Friday. <\/p>\n
Acton said Israel might be able to collapse the entrance to the facility, but noted that destroying much more of the Fordow site will be a difficult task for Israel. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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