Israel strikes unfinished Arak heavy water reactor in Iran

The Israeli jets bombed a nuclear reactor under construction in the center of Iran during a wave of air strikes on the seventh day of the conflict between the two countries.

The Israeli army said it was targeting the basic seal of the Arak heavy water reactor to prevent it from being used for “nuclear weapons”.

The International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed that the reactor had been affected and that it did not contain nuclear material.

The fuel spent from heavy water reactors contains plutonium adapted to a nuclear bomb.

Iran – which says that its nuclear program is entirely peaceful – has agreed under a 2015 agreement with the global powers to rethink and rebuild Arak so that it cannot produce armed quality plutonium.

The following year, the IAEA said that Iran had withdrawn the Arak Calandrie, or the reactor nucleus, and made it “inoperable”.

Global Nuclear Watchdog’s latest quarterly report from the end of May said that minor civil construction work continued to the reactor and that Iran expected it to be put into service this year and start to operate in 2026.

The Israeli army said the Iranian government had “deliberately ordered [workers] In order not to finish the conversion … in order to exert pressure on the West “.

“The strike has targeted the component intended for the production of plutonium, in order to prevent the reactor from being restored and used for the development of nuclear weapons,” he added.

Black and white aerial images of the attack published by the army seemed to show a bomb striking the roof in the form of a dome of the reactor building and several large explosions of Arak, which, about 250 km (155 miles) southwest of Teheran and is also known as Khondab.

Diurnal video broadcast by Iranian state television has shown two large plumes of white smoke that amounts to the installation. He also quoted Iranian officials saying that the site had been “insured in advance” and that there was “no contamination resulting from the attack”.

Satellite imaging has shown A large hole in the roof of the reactor.

Analysts have also been visible as distillation towers destroyed belonging to the adjacent heavy water production plant. The IAEA said that it had no information indicating that the heavy water plant had been affected.

The Israeli army also announced Thursday that its fighter planes had struck a “nuclear weapon development site” in Natanz.

It is the location of the main factory of Iran producing enriched uranium, which is used to make reactors fuel for power plants but, if it is enriched, can be used in nuclear weapons.

Last Friday, the first wave of Israeli strikes destroyed the part above the ground of the Natanz pilot fuel factory (PFEP), where centrifugal waterfalls enriched uranium, as well as electricity infrastructure on the site.

Rafael Grossi, the director general of the IAEA, told the BBC on Monday that there is no sign of physical attack on the underground centrifuge room in Natanz, the sudden loss of power was likely to have seriously damaged, if not destroyed, the centrifuges which are operational there.

On Friday, four buildings was destroyed during a separate attack on Isfahan Nuclear Technology Center, he said. But very little, if not, damage was visible in the underground enrichment plant from Iran to Fordo, he added.

President Donald Trump would have weighs if the United States should participate in a strike on Fordo, because it is the only country with a conventional bomb large enough to destroy it. Sources told the American BBC CBS News partner that his state of mind was that the deactivation of the installation was necessary.

In 2018, Trump abandoned the nuclear agreement with Iran, saying that he had done too little to stop his way to a bomb and restored the American sanctions that paralyzed the Iranian economy.

Iran retaliated by increasingly breaking the restrictions – in particular those relating to the production of enriched uranium.

In its quarterly report, the IAEA expressed its concern that Iran has raised enough uranium enriched up to 60% of purity – a short technical step in the quality of weapons, or 90% – to potentially make nine nuclear bombs.

Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, said on Friday that he was targeting the Iranian nuclear program because “if it was not arrested, Iran could produce a nuclear weapon in a very short time”. He has provided no evidence.

Abbas Araghchi, Iranian Minister for Foreign Affairs, said on Sunday that Israel had “crossed a new red line in international law” by attacking nuclear sites. He also insisted that Iran’s doctrine was “rooted in our belief in the prohibition and illegitimacy of nuclear weapons”.

Israel is largely suspected of having nuclear weapons, although it does not confirm or deny it.

Israeli air strikes have also destroyed Iranian military facilities and military weapons and have killed military commanders and nuclear scientists.

The Iranian Ministry of Health said on Sunday that at least 224 people had been killed, but a human rights group had taken the unofficial assessment at 639.

Iran has launched hundreds of ballistic missiles in Israel in response to air strikes that killed at least 24 people, according to the Prime Minister’s office.