What's Iran's Natanz nuclear site that Israel struck?

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4 days ago

Israel on Friday carried out massive strikes on Iran including on several military and nuclear targets. The Natanz nuclear site, around 225 kilometers south of Tehran, was among those targeted. But what do we know about it? And how many other nuclear facilities does Iran have? read more
Israel on Friday carried out massive strikes on Iran.
Tel Aviv in an operation named Rising Lion, hit several military and nuclear targets across Tehran.
This included the Natanz nuclear site in central Iran – which was confirmed by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
The IAEA's head Rafael Mariano Grossi wrote on X, 'The IAEA is closely monitoring the deeply concerning situation in Iran. … The Agency is in contact with Iranian authorities regarding radiation levels. We are also in contact with our inspectors in the country.'
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The development came just a day after the IAEA passed declaring that Iran is in non-compliance with its nuclear safeguards obligations.
Tehran in turn vowed to build a new enrichment facility and scale up its enrichment of uranium.
Do we know about the Natanz nuclear site? What about the other sites that Israel struck?
Let's take a close look
Natanz nuclear site
Natanz, around 225 kilometers south of Tehran, is Iran's main enrichment facility.
Located in the province of Isfahan, Natanz is partly above ground and partly below the ground.
It comprises the commercial Fuel Enrichment Plant (FEP) and the Pilot Fuel Enrichment Plant (PFEP).
The facility, which is 2.7 square kilometres wide, can hold up to 50,000 centrifuges.
Around 16,000 centrifuges are currently installed there, roughly 13,000 of which are in operation, refining uranium to up to 5 per cent purity.
It has multiple halls of centrifuges spinning uranium gas for its nuclear program.
The above-ground PFEP houses only hundreds of centrifuges but Iran is enriching to up to 60 per cent purity there.
Its existence was revealed in 2002 by an exiled Iranian opposition group.
The site has repeatedly come under sabotage attempts – most recently in April 2021 and 2020, both incidents for which Tehran blamed Tel Aviv.
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A satellite image shows the tunnel complex near the Natanz nuclear facility in Iran in this handout image dated January 24, 2025. Maxar Technologies/Handout via Reuters
It was previously targeted by the Stuxnet virus, believed to be an Israeli and American creation, which destroyed Iranian centrifuges.
In 2023, Iran ordered fresh construction at the site.
It is guarded by anti-aircraft batteries, fencing and Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard.
Satellite photos taken by Planet Labs PBC in April 2023 and analysed by the AP show Iran burrowing into the Kūh-e Kolang Gaz Lā, or 'Pickaxe Mountain,' which is just beyond Natanz's southern fencing.
A different set of images analysed by the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies reveals that four entrances have been dug into the mountainside, two to the east and another two to the west. Each is 6 meters (20 feet) wide and 8 meters (26 feet) tall.
The scale of the work can be measured in large dirt mounds, two to the west and one to the east. Based on the size of the spoil piles and other satellite data, experts at the center said Iran was likely building a facility at a depth of between 80 meters and 100 meters.
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The Institute for Science and International Security, a Washington-based nonprofit long focused on Iran's nuclear program, suggested last year the tunnels could go even deeper.
Experts at the time warned that the facility would not be vulnerable to conventional bombs.
Though visuals showed black smoke wafting over the facility, It remains unclear what the damage is.
Iranian state television briefly showed the live picture with a reporter.
Iranian state TV said the facility was hit several times.
Bushehr nuclear plant
The Bushehr nuclear plant is on the Persian Gulf coast.
Located in Halileh, 12 kilometres south of Bushehr, the facility is Iran's first commercial reactor.
Iran's only nuclear power plant in the southern port city of Bushehr was built by Russia and began operating at a lower capacity in 2011 before being plugged into the national power grid in 2012.
Russia continues to deliver nuclear fuel for the plant, which remains under IAEA control.
A worker rides a bicycle in front of the reactor building of the Bushehr nuclear power plant, just outside the southern city of Bushehr, Iran, on October 26, 2010. File image/ AP
Russia then takes it back when it is spent – thus bringing down the proliferation risk.
A German company began construction on the plant with a 1,000-megawatt nominal capacity until the project was halted in the wake of the 1979 Islamic revolution.
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Moscow later completed it and agreed to incorporate its own technology into the German infrastructure.
The IAEA said the Bushehr nuclear power plant 'has not been targeted'.
Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant
Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant (FFEP) is located in the holy city of Qom.
It is Iran's second enrichment plant after Natanz.
Secretly built in violation of United Nations resolutions under a mountain, Fordow was first publicly revealed in 2009.
Tehran claims construction on the FFEP began in 2006, while the US thinks it began in 2007.
It is an enrichment site dug into a mountain and thus probably better protected from potential bombardment than the FEP.
Initially described as an 'emergency' facility built underground to protect it from potential air attacks, Iran later indicated it was an enrichment plant capable of housing about 3,000 centrifuges.
The United States, Britain and France announced in 2009 that Iran had been secretly building Fordow for years and had failed to inform the IAEA. US President Barack Obama said then: 'The size and configuration of this facility is inconsistent with a peaceful programme.'
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The 2015 deal with major powers did not allow Iran to enrich at Fordow at all.
It now has around 2,000 centrifuges operating there, most of them advanced IR-6 machines, of which up to 350 are enriching to up to 60 per cent.
In 2023, uranium particles enriched up to 83.7 percent were discovered at the Fordow plant, which Iran claimed were the product of 'unintended fluctuations' during the enrichment process.
The IAEA said Iran's underground enrichment site at Fordo 'has not been impacted.'
Khondab research reactor
Khondab was originally called the Arak heavy-water research reactor. It is located on the outskirts of the village of Khondab.
The research reactor was officially intended to produce plutonium for medical research and the site includes a production plant for heavy water.
Heavy-water reactors pose a nuclear proliferation risk because they can easily produce plutonium which, like enriched uranium, can be used to make the core of an atom bomb.
Work on the facility began in the 2000s, but was halted under the terms of the 2015 deal.
The reactor's core was removed and filled with concrete to make it unusable.
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The reactor was to be redesigned 'to minimise the production of plutonium and not to produce weapon-grade plutonium in normal operation'.
Iran has meanwhile informed the IAEA about its plans to commission the reactor by 2026.
Isfahan uranium facility
This facility is located in Isfahan – Iran's second largest city.
It includes the Fuel Plate Fabrication Plant (FPFP) and the uranium conversion facility (UCF) that can process uranium into the uranium hexafluoride that is fed into centrifuges.
Iran also stores enriched uranium at Isfahan, diplomats say.
There is equipment at Isfahan to make uranium metal, a process that is particularly proliferation-sensitive since it can be used to devise the core of a nuclear bomb.
A satellite image shows the Isfahan enrichment plant in Iran in this handout image dated March 29, 2025. Maxar Technologies/Handout via Reuters
The IAEA has said there are machines for making centrifuge parts at Isfahan, describing it in 2022 as a 'new location'.
At the uranium conversion facility at Isfahan in central Iran, raw mined uranium is processed into uranium tetrafluoride (UF4) and then into uranium hexafluoride (UF6), a feed gas for centrifuges.
The plant was industrially tested in 2004 upon its completion.
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The Isfahan centre also harbours a nuclear fuel fabrication facility, which was inaugurated in 2009 and produces low-enriched fuel for use in power plants.
In July 2022, Iran announced plans to construct a new research reactor there.
The IAEA said Iran's nuclear site at Isfahan had not been impacted by the Israeli attacks.
Darkhovin nuclear power reactor
The Darkhovin nuclear power reactor is also known as the IR-360 or the Karun nuclear power reactor.
It is a 300-megawatt power plant.
Located in Khuzestan province in southwest Iran, Tehran began construction on the facility in late 2022.
Sirik power plant
The Sirik power plant is located in Sirik Country, which is located in Iran's Hormozgan Province.
The 5,000 megawatt plant will comprise four separate units.
It will take about nine years to build and will cost an estimated $20 billion.
Tehran Research Reactor
The Tehran Research Reactor (TRR) is a light water research reactor.
It has a capacity of 5 megawatts.
A satellite image shows the Tehran Research Reactor (TRR) in Iran in this handout image dated April 3, 2025. Maxar Technologies/Handout via Reuters
The US provided the reactor to Tehran in 1967 in order to produce medical radioisotopes as well as 5.58 kilos of highly enriched uranium (HEU) fuel.
It can produce around 600 grams of plutonium every year.
Tehran and the bomb
The US and Iran signed a nuclear deal in 2015 which limited it enrichment of uranium to 3.67 per cent purity.
That was enough only to power civilian power stations, and keep its stockpile to just some 300 kilograms.
However, in 2018, then President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew America from the nuclear accord. Trump argued the deal did not address Tehran's ballistic missile program, nor its support of militias across the wider West Asia.
As of mid-May, Iran's total enriched uranium stockpile was estimated at 9,247.6 kilograms – or more than 45 times the limit set out in the 2015 nuclear deal which Trump tore apart – according to the latest report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
Among its stockpiles, Iran has an estimated 408.6 kilograms enriched to up to 60 percent – just a short step from the 90 per cent needed for a nuclear warhead.
The country now theoretically has enough near-weapons-grade material, if further refined, for about 10 nuclear bombs, according to the definition by the Vienna-based IAEA.
Iran has consistently denied it seeks to build a nuclear weapon.
With inputs from agencies