The Israeli military tonight confirmed it had struck two nuclear facilities in central Iran, the Arak heavy water reactor and a uranium processing plant in Yazd province, as it marked 28 days since the start of the war in the Middle East.
“A short time ago the Air Force (…) struck the Arak heavy water reactor,” the military said in its statement, claiming it was “a key facility for the production of plutonium for nuclear weapons”.
Iranian media have referred to US-Israeli strikes “in two phases” on the complex, now called Hodab. No casualties were reported, and no increase in the level of radiation was caused.
Soon after, the Israeli army issued a new statement saying it had hit a uranium processing plant in Yazd province. Israeli forces “attacked the only plant of this kind in Iran, which is used to produce materials necessary for the uranium enrichment process”. Israel “will not allow” Iran “to advance its nuclear weapons program,” the statement said.
The Iranian Atomic Energy Agency, for its part, said that the Ardakan plant (also known as Shahid Rezaye Nejad), which produces uranium concentrate, a first stage before enrichment, was hit. He assured that there was no leakage of radioactive material. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA/IAEA) said it was informed by Tehran of this attack and no increase in the level of radioactivity was observed at the site.
The construction of the Arak heavy water reactor, which officially produced plutonium for medical research, began in the 2000s. But the project was “frozen” under the 2015 Vienna international agreement on Iran’s nuclear programme, which the US withdrew from in 2018. The heart of the Arak reactor was removed and the site was covered with concrete to make it inoperable.
Araq was also hit by Israel during the 12-day war in June 2025. According to the IAEA, the heavy water plant was damaged and has since been “not fully operational”. The IAEA did not specify whether it had access to this site from May 2025 onwards.
Earlier, two large steel production complexes were targeted by Israeli-American aerial bombardment. According to Iranian media, the steel plants hit were a factory belonging to the Mobarakeh Group, Iran’s steel giant, located in Isfahan province (central Iran) and another complex in Khuzistan province in the southwestern part of the country.
Tehran threatens to hit industrial plants in the region
In response, the Revolutionary Guards, the Islamic Republic’s ideological army, has called on workers at industrial facilities in the region linked to the US and Israel to evacuate, threatening retaliation.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi also said Iran would “exact a heavy price” on “Israeli crimes.”
“Israel struck two of Iran’s most important steel mills, a power plant and two nuclear plants, among other infrastructure (…) in coordination with the US,” he wrote in a post on platform X.
