Israeli attacks cause limited damage to Iran's nuclear sites, radioactive leak contained

Iran's nuclear energy facilities at Fordow and Natanz suffered limited damage inflicted by Israeli attacks on Friday and Saturday, according to Iranian news media.

"There has been limited damage to some areas at the Fordow enrichment site," the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) spokesperson Behrouz Kamalvandi was quoted by ISNA news agency, as saying, adding that the uranium enrichment facility at the Fordow site in the Qom province remained unharmed. "We had already moved a significant part of the equipment and materials out, and there was no extensive damage and there are no contamination concerns."

Earlier, atomic energy organization spokesperson said the attacks caused superficial damages to the Natanz nuclear facility in Iran's central province of Isfahan.

Kamalvandi said chemical and radioactive contamination has been detected inside the Natanz site, but it had not spread outside the facility. "We need to clean up the radiation inside the Natanz facility and then assess the damage," he said in a statement, according to Iran's Tasnim News Agency.

Other facilities, including a nuclear research center in the city of Tabriz, were also targeted by Israeli attacks.

The Israel Defense Forces said in a statement that its fighter jets carried out a precision-guided airstrike on the Natanz nuclear facility overnight.

Moreover, IDF spokesman Effie Defrin said in a video briefing that Israeli air force fighter jets had completed an attack on the Isfahan nuclear facility in central Iran on Friday, among others. It added that the strike was carried out with precise guidance from the IDF Intelligence Directorate.

Iran's UN envoy Saeed Iravani, in a media statement delivered after a UN Security Council session on Friday, said: "Let me be clear: Israel attacked safeguarded nuclear sites. This was a reckless, criminal act that could have triggered a radiological catastrophe far beyond Iran's borders.

"Such an attack is not only a violation of the UN Charter, the Statute of the IAEA, and the Non-Proliferation Treaty, but it is a direct threat to regional and global peace.

"This was not simply an attack on Iran. It was an attack on the international legal order, an attack on the United Nations, an attack on every nation that believes in the rule of law over the rule of force."

Rafael Mariano Grossi, the director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA, on Friday told the agency's board of governors that "nuclear facilities must never be attacked, regardless of the context or circumstances, as it could harm both people and the environment."

In a statement, Grossi said the IAEA is currently in contact with the Iranian nuclear safety authorities to ascertain the status of relevant nuclear facilities following the airstrikes by Israel, and to assess any wider impact on nuclear safety and security.

China's permanent representative to the IAEA, Li Song, said China condemns Israel's military action against Iran and opposes armed attacks on peaceful nuclear facilities.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, during a phone conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday, stressed that the Islamic Republic "has never sought to acquire nuclear weapons and is ready to provide assurances to relevant international authorities in this regard."