Israel's military warns people to evacuate the area around Iran's Arak heavy water reactor
Heavy water helps cool nuclear reactors, but it produces plutonium as a byproduct that can potentially be used in nuclear weapons. That would provide Iran another path to the bomb beyond enriched uranium, should it choose to pursue the weapon.
Iran had agreed under its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers to redesign the facility to relieve proliferation concerns.
In 2019, Iran started up the heavy water reactor's secondary circuit, which at the time did not violate Tehran's 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.
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Britain at the time was helping Iran redesign the Arak reactor to limit the amount of plutonium it produces, stepping in for the U.S., which had withdrawn from the project after President Donald Trump's decision in 2018 to unilaterally withdraw America from the nuclear deal.
The International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations' nuclear watchdog, has been urging Israel not to strike Iranian nuclear sites. IAEA inspectors reportedly last visited Arak on May 14.
Due to restrictions Iran imposed on inspectors, the IAEA has said it lost 'continuity of knowledge' about Iran's heavy water production -- meaning it could not absolutely verify Tehran's production and stockpile.
Already, Israel's airstrike campaign has targeted Iran's enrichment site at Natanz, centrifuge workshops around Tehran and a nuclear site in Isfahan.
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As part of negotiations around the 2015 deal, Iran agreed to sell off its heavy water to the West to remain in compliance with the accord's terms. Even the U.S. purchased some 32 tons of heavy water for over $8 million in one deal. That was one issue that drew criticism from opponents to the deal.
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