Confusion over Iran's Bushehr nuclear power plant after mixed messages from Israel on strikes
Israel said it struck Iran's only functioning nuclear power plant along the Gulf coast on Thursday, potentially a major escalation in the war, but an Israeli military official later backtracked by saying "it was a mistake" to have said it was hit.
The confusion came as Israel launched further strikes against Iranian nuclear targets on the seventh day of the war. An assault on the Bushehr power plant, which is located near the UAE and employs technicians from Russia, would widely be seen as a big step.
In its latest comments, the Israeli military would only confirm that Israel had hit the Natanz, Isfahan and Arak nuclear sites in Iran.
Pressed on Bushehr, an Israeli military official said he could neither confirm nor deny that Israel had struck the location, where Iran has a reactor.
Bushehr is Iran's only operating nuclear power plant. It uses Russian fuel that Moscow then takes back when it is spent to reduce proliferation risk.
The head of Russia 's nuclear energy corporation Rosatom warned that an Israeli attack on Bushehr could lead to a "Chernobyl-style catastrophe".
An attack on Bushehr would be "beyond... evil," Russia's state RIA news agency cited Alexei Likhachev as saying.
"If there is a strike on the operational first power unit, it will be a catastrophe comparable to Chernobyl."
Mr Likhachev was referring to the world's worst nuclear disaster in 1986, when a reactor exploded at Chernobyl in Soviet Ukraine.
Russia has evacuated some of its specialists from Bushehr, he said, but the core workforce of hundreds of people remained on site.
"We are prepared for any scenario, including the rapid evacuation of all our employees," Mr Likhachev added.
President Vladimir Putin told journalists in the early hours of Thursday that Israel had promised Russia that Moscow's workers – who are building more nuclear facilities at the Bushehr site – would be safe, even as Israel tries to degrade Iran's nuclear capabilities by force.
It came as the Iran-Israel war entered its seventh day, with a barrage of Iranian missiles hitting Israel on Thursday morning.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has vowed to press on with Israel's biggest attack on Iran until its nuclear programme is destroyed, said Tehran's "tyrants" would pay the "full price".
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