Natanz: Iran’s Largest Uranium Enrichment Site Hit by Israeli Strikes
An Israeli attack targets Iran’s largest uranium enrichment facility, causing infrastructure damage.
The Israeli military announced that it had struck the uranium enrichment site in the Natanz area during an early Friday morning raid on Iran.
In the statement, the military said:
“Last night, Israeli Air Force aircraft, acting on precise intelligence provided by Military Intelligence, launched a strike on the uranium enrichment site in the Natanz area.”
The Israeli army described the site as “Iran’s largest uranium enrichment facility, which has for years been involved in efforts to acquire nuclear weapons.”
According to the statement, the site contains “the infrastructure required for military-level enrichment.”
The airstrikes reportedly damaged infrastructure at the Natanz facility, including “a multi-level enrichment hall containing centrifuges, electrical rooms, and other support systems.”
The military emphasized that the operation, coordinated between the intelligence agency and the air force, dealt a significant blow to the site.
Meanwhile, Iran confirmed that most of the damage at the underground enrichment facility was “superficial.”
Natanz Overview
Natanz is a complex central to Iran’s nuclear enrichment program, located on a plain near the mountains outside the city of Qom, south of Tehran.
The complex includes two enrichment plants: a large underground fuel enrichment facility and a smaller, above-ground pilot plant, according to Reuters.
In 2002, an Iranian opposition group based abroad revealed that Iran was secretly building the Natanz facility, sparking a diplomatic showdown between the West and Tehran over its nuclear ambitions.
The underground fuel enrichment plant was built for industrial-scale enrichment and is capable of housing up to 50,000 centrifuges.
Currently, the site contains around 16,000 centrifuges, of which approximately 13,000 are operational and enrich uranium to 5%, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
Diplomats familiar with the site say the main enrichment facility is located three floors underground. There has long been debate over how much damage Israeli airstrikes could inflict on it.
The facility has previously suffered damage through other means — including an explosion and power outage in April 2021 — which Iran attributed to an Israeli attack.
The above-ground enrichment plant, on the other hand, contains only a few hundred centrifuges but is used by Iran to enrich uranium to a purity level of up to 60%.
