Israel Expands Strikes on Iran’s Nuclear Facilities — Is Iran Really Trying to Make Sense of the Nuclear Program? — A Comment on Mr. Lewis at the Natanz Nuclear Facility

“Unless the Israelis can keep bombing them indefinitely,” he says, “they will always have the ability to technically reconstitute the program if they make a decision to do so.”

Lewis says he wonders whether military force can truly eliminate Iran’s nuclear program. In the end, he says, there is no single facility or scientist that holds the key to the entire nuclear enterprise in Iran.

Lewis also saw no evidence that Israel had struck at tunnels deep beneath a nearby mountain. Iran was building a more fortified facility for its Centrifuges, according to reports. In recent days it had pledged that it would accelerate development of a third centrifuge site, possibly in the mountain facility.

“That’s likely to disrupt operations at the plant, but crucially, what they didn’t do was find a way to destroy the thousands of centrifuges that are buried underground,” Lewis says.

Video posted online and verified by NPR showed black smoke billowing from the Natanz site early Friday morning local time. A set of images from the commercial satellite company show damage to the main electrical transformer at the facility as well as to buildings used to assemble and run centrifuges.

Source: Israel expands strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities

Israel’s nuclear enrichment facilities and nuclear research complex have been targeted by Israeli air strikes since the first day of the Israeli air campaign on Sunday

Preliminary analysis of satellite imagery at the site suggests the damage from the first wave of attacks was actually limited, according to Jeffrey Lewis, a professor at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies who has tracked Iran’s program.

The country said it struck against Iranian air defenses in the west of Iran. The strikes destroyed many missiles and radars.

It’s difficult to say how fast that material could be converted into bombs. During the enrichment process, the uranium is stored as a gas. The separated metal must be turned into components for a nuclear device. Iran did have a covert program to research such a weapon in the early 2000s, but has never built a nuclear weapon, and has no intentions of doing so in the near future.

The most visible strike was in the early hours of the Israeli air campaign. In a statement the Israeli military said that fighter jets had struck Iran’s largest enrichment facility at Natanz. The underground area of the site was damaged during the strikes. The area contains a multi-story hall with centrifuges, electrical rooms, and additional infrastructure.

During a meeting of the agency’s board of governors, Grossi said that nuclear facilities must never be attacked.

The attack on the Natanz plant caused damage but there was no radioactive or chemical leak outside the site according to a statement from the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran.

By Friday afternoon, there were additional reports of Israeli strikes near Iran’s other main enrichment facility at Fordow, and at Isfahan, which is also home to a nuclear research complex. The strikes that took place in the second night of fighting have been known so far.

The Israeli strikes killed top Iranian military leaders and nuclear scientists ahead of planned negotiations in Oman on Sunday aimed at addressing international concerns over Iran’s uranium enrichment program.

Air raid sirens went off in Jordan with mosques telling people to shelter. The Government of Jordan said it had stopped drones and missiles from flying over the country.

The 6th Round of Iran–U.S. Nuclear Disciplinary Processes: Iran and the Nuclear Enrichment Problem

Iran was found to be in violation of non-proliferation agreements this week by the International Atomic Energy Agency. Iran says it has peaceful uses for its nuclear enrichment program.

Trump said he was giving the nation “chance after chance to make a deal” on its nuclear program and said that the alternative “would be much worse than anything they know, anticipated, or were told.”

I told Iran two months ago that it needed to make a deal. They should have done it!” he wrote on Truth Social. “Now they have, perhaps, a second chance!”

The meeting was canceled on Saturday, according to the Omani foreign minister. But he said “diplomacy and dialogue remain the only pathway to lasting peace.”

The sixth round of talks between Iran and the U.S. were scheduled to start in Oman on Sunday. The U.S. was trying to strike a deal with Iran to limit its uranium enrichment in exchange for lifting sanctions, which have crippled Iran’s economy.

The Israeli military said that the scientists who died had played a key role in Iran’s nuclear program and that their deaths were a blow to Iran’s ability to make weapons.

Iran responded to the Israeli strikes with a barrage of missiles, killing at least three people and injuring dozens more. Iran’s state media warned that there would be “destructive attacks against Israel” Saturday night.

Source: Israel says it killed 9 Iranian nuclear scientists, and braces for attacks from Iran

The Iranian Air Defense Forces and the Tehran-Jetsevin-Lebanese Crisis: The Security Council and the Palestinian Red Crescent

The escalation has raised fears of a wider regional conflict, one that could rope in neighboring countries and threaten to destabilize global energy markets.

An official with the U.S. confirmed to NPR that the U.S. air defense systems helped shoot down the Iranian missiles. The U.S. official spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

Iran’s UN ambassador accused Israel of trying to kill diplomacy and called it the most dangerous regime in the world. He urged the Security Council to hold Israel accountable.

Over320 people, mostly civilians, were injured, and 78 people were killed. Iran’s state television reported that a residential building in Tehran was also hit, and the death toll was expected to rise.

Israeli emergency services group Magen David Adom said there were three deaths and dozens of injuries. The Palestinian Red Crescent said that children were among the Palestinians injured by shrapnel near the city of Hebron in the occupied West Bank.

Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz warned Iran it would pay a heavy price after it violated red lines by firing missiles at civilians, the Times of Israel reported.

In a statement on Friday evening, Prime Minister Netanyahu explained that the Iran attack was being planned for months following the assassination of the Hezbollah leader in Lebanon.