Published on •Updated
In the early hours on Friday, Israel launched a large-scale military operation against at least 100 targets in Iran, including the Tehran regime’s military leadership and strategic sites of the Iranian nuclear programme.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel targeted Iran’s nuclear enrichment and nuclear weaponisation facilities, ballistic missile programme sites, as well as individual Iranian nuclear scientists.
About a dozen different sites appear to have been targeted, including those in Tehran, Shiraz and Tabriz, as well as reportedly in Isfahan and Kermanshah.
Operation ‘Rising Lion’: What were the targets on Friday?
According to the IDF, Israel used 200 fighter jets and around 330 “various munitions” to strike more than 100 targets across the country.
Israel and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) confirmed the strikes at the Natanz nuclear site, around 250km from Tehran.
Iran’s most significant nuclear enrichment site and its underground centrifuge facilities are protected by heavy concrete walls. Construction work was under way to expand the site.
It is unclear how much damage was done during the attack, but video footage posted online appeared to show the aftermath of massive explosions.
According to the US-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW), the list of targets in Tehran includes the neighbourhoods of Farahzad, Amir Abad and Andarzgou, the Lavizan district and the Asatid-e Sarv complex. Targets were also hit on the Nobonyad, Langari and Patrice Lulumba streets in Tehran. The Jahan Koudak Tower was also struck.
The ISW says unverified images have been circulating on social media showing specific buildings impacted by the airstrikes, suggesting that Israel conducted targeted killings in Tehran.
Israeli Army Radio also reported that Israel targeted Ali Shamkhani, a top adviser to the supreme leader.
What did Israel not strike?
Iranian authorities told UN atomic agency chief Rafael Grossi that Israel’s strikes had not hit the country’s nuclear facilities at Fordow, Isfahan and Bushehr.
The Fordow facility is located some 100 km southwest of Tehran. It also hosts centrifuge cascades, but it is smaller than the Natanz facility.
Iran is using Fordow to produce most of the near-weapons-grade uranium it has amassed since 2021.
The site is reportedly designed to withstand airstrikes as it is protected by anti-aircraft batteries. It is a heavily protected enrichment site built into a mountainside, which sits an estimated 80 metres under rock and soil.
Military experts previously said that it would require a weapon like a “bunker-buster” bomb known as the “Massive Ordnance Penetrator”. This is the aspect where Israel might need US help and support in providing this type of weapon.
Another nuclear facility not targeted by Israel is the one in Isfahan.
Located around 350 km southeast of Tehran, Isfahan employs thousands of nuclear scientists. It is also home to three Chinese research reactors and laboratories associated with the country’s atomic program. Isfahan is considered Iran’s largest nuclear research complex.
The Bushehr nuclear power plant on the Persian Gulf, around 750 km south of Tehran, is Iran’s only commercial nuclear power plant.
Construction on the plant began under Iran’s Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in the mid-1970s. After the 1979 Islamic Revolution, the plant was repeatedly targeted in the Iran-Iraq War. Russia later completed construction of the facility.
Iran is building two other reactors like it at the site. Bushehr is fueled by uranium produced in Russia, not Iran, and is monitored by the IAEA.
