Iran hits Israeli town housing nuclear facility in retaliation for Natanz strike | Israel
An Iranian missile hit the Israeli town of Dimona, home to a nuclear facility, in what Iran said was retaliation for attacks on its own nuclear facility at Natanz.
Dimona is home to a facility believed to have the Middle East’s only nuclear arsenal, just outside the main city, although Israel has never admitted to possessing nuclear weapons.
Iran’s atomic energy organization had previously accused the US and Israel of striking the Natanz enrichment complex, but noted that “no leakage of radioactive material has been reported”.
The Israeli military told AFP there was a “direct missile hit on a building” in Dimona. Magen David Adom’s first responders said their teams treated 33 people injured at multiple locations, including a 10-year-old boy who was in serious condition with shrapnel wounds.
“There was a lot of damage and chaos at the scene,” paramedic Karmel Cohen said.
The Israeli army said that “intercept attempts were carried out” after the missiles were detected.
In the images shared by Israeli media, an object was seen flying out of the sky at high speed before hitting the city.
Iranian state television said the attack was a “response” to an earlier attack on Natanz.
Following this attack, UN nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi repeated his “call for military restraint to avoid any risk of nuclear accidents.”
The Natanz facility houses underground centrifuges for enriching uranium for Iran’s controversial nuclear program and was already damaged in the war in June last year.
When asked about Natanz, the Israeli army said it was “not aware of the attack.”
The Israeli military also said on Saturday that it had struck a facility inside Tehran’s university that was “used by the military industries of the Iranian terrorist regime and its ballistic missile array to develop nuclear weapons components and weapons.”
Three weeks of intense US-Israeli bombardment appear to have done little to blunt Iran’s ability to retaliate with missile and drone strikes across the region.
The United Arab Emirates said on Saturday it was facing airstrikes after Iran warned against allowing attacks from its territory on disputed islands near the strategic Strait of Hormuz.
Iran has blocked the vital waterway used for a fifth of global crude trade in peacetime.
Adm. Brad Cooper, head of U.S. Central Command, said U.S. warplanes dropped a 5,000-pound bomb on an underground facility off the coast of Iran that stores anti-ship cruise missiles, mobile launchers and other equipment, “disrupting” Iran’s ability to threaten the waterway.
“Not only did we destroy the facility, but we also destroyed the intelligence support sites and missile radar relays used to monitor ship movements,” Cooper said in a video statement detailing the attack first announced Tuesday.
Meanwhile, in the statement made by the leaders of European countries, including the UK, France, Italy and Germany, as well as South Korea, Australia, the UAE and Bahrain, the “de facto closure of the Strait of Hormuz by Iranian forces” was condemned.
“We express our readiness to contribute to the necessary efforts to ensure safe passage through the Bosphorus,” they said.
Donald Trump called NATO allies “cowards” and called on them to ensure the security of the strait.
Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said Tehran had imposed restrictions only on ships from countries attacking Iran and would offer assistance to others outside the conflict.
The stagnation in the Strait caused crude oil prices to soar; North Sea Brent crude has risen more than 50% in the past month and is now comfortably above $105 (£79) a barrel.
Analysts say Iran’s Islamic government is recovering from the loss of its top leaders and its offensive capabilities are more resilient than expected.
Neil Quilliam from Chatham House said in the podcast of the London-based think tank, adding that Iran has deep roots, “Perhaps they are showing a resistance that we did not expect, that the United States did not expect when it took on this.”
Meanwhile, Tehran celebrated the end of Ramadan as the war entered its fourth week.
Iran’s religious leader traditionally leads the Eid al-Fitr prayer, but Mojtaba Khamenei, who came to power after his father Ali Khamenei was killed earlier this month, has remained out of the public eye.
Instead, the head of the judiciary, Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei, attended prayers at the crowded Imam Khomeini mosque in central Tehran.
“The New Year’s atmosphere was spreading throughout the city,” advertising executive Farid, contacted by AFP via online message, said.
But “the thought that some people might die at the New Year’s dinner table was painful,” he added.
Shiva, a 31-year-old painter, told AFP that “the only common feeling these days is uncertainty.”
“The only night we felt truly happy was the night when Ali Khamenei was reported to have been killed,” he said.
