Iran hits Israeli town housing nuclear facility in retaliation for Natanz strike
World
UN repeated a “call for military restraint to avoid any risk of a nuclear accident”
(Web Desk) – An Iranian missile has hit the Israeli town of Dimona, home to a nuclear facility, in what Iran said was retaliation for strikes on its own nuclear site at Natanz.
Dimona hosts a facility just outside the main town widely believed to possess the Middle East’s sole nuclear arsenal, although Israel has never admitted to possessing nuclear weapons.
Iran’s atomic energy organisation earlier accused the US and Israel of hitting the Natanz enrichment complex, but noted there was “no leakage of radioactive materials reported”.
The Israeli army told AFP there had been a “direct missile hit on a building” in Dimona, with Magen David Adom first responders saying their teams had treated 33 people injured at multiple sites, including a 10-year-old boy in serious condition with shrapnel wounds.
“There was extensive damage and chaos at the scene,” paramedic Karmel Cohen said.
The Israeli military said “interception attempts were carried out” after the missiles were detected.
Images shared by Israeli media showed an object hurtling out of the sky at high speed before crashing into the town.
Iranian state TV said the attack was a “response” to the earlier strike on Natanz.
After that attack, the UN nuclear watchdog chief, Rafael Grossi, repeated a “call for military restraint to avoid any risk of a nuclear accident”.
The Natanz facility hosts underground centrifuges to enrich uranium for Iran’s disputed nuclear programme and was already damaged in last year’s June war.
Asked about Natanz, the Israeli military said it was “not aware of a strike”.
The Israeli military also said Saturday it had struck a facility embedded within a Tehran university “utilised by the Iranian terror regime’s military industries and ballistic missiles array to develop nuclear weapon components and weapons”.
Three weeks of heavy US-Israeli bombardment appear to have done little to blunt Iran’s ability to retaliate with missile and drone attacks across the region.
The United Arab Emirates said on Saturday it had faced aerial attacks after Iran warned it against allowing attacks from its territory on disputed islands near the strategic strait of Hormuz.
Iran has choked off the vital waterway, which is used for a fifth of global crude trade during peacetime.
