Iranian missile hits main hospital in southern Israel as strikes wound dozens
TEL AVIV, Israel — An Iranian missile slammed into the main hospital in southern Israel early Thursday, wounding people and causing 'extensive damage,' according to the medical facility. Israeli media aired footage of blown-out windows and heavy black smoke.
Another missile hit a high-rise building and several other residential buildings in at least two sites near Tel Aviv. At least 40 people were wounded in the attacks, according to Israel's Magen David Adom rescue service.
Israel, meanwhile, carried out strikes on Iran's Arak heavy water reactor, in its latest attack on the country's sprawling nuclear program, on the seventh day of a conflict that began with a surprise wave of Israeli airstrikes targeting military sites, senior officers and nuclear scientists.
Iran has fired hundreds of missiles and drones at Israel, though most have been shot down by Israel's multi-tiered air defenses, which detect incoming fire and shoot down missiles heading toward population centers and critical infrastructure. Israeli officials acknowledge it is imperfect.
The missile hit the Soroka Medical Center, which has over 1,000 beds and provides services to the approximately 1 million residents of Israel's south.
A hospital statement said several parts of the medical center were damaged and that the emergency room was treating several minor injuries. The hospital was closed to all new patients except for life-threatening cases. It was not immediately clear how many were wounded in the strike.
Many hospitals in Israel activated emergency plans in the past week, converting underground parking to hospital floors and move patients underground, especially those who are on ventilators or are difficult to move quickly.
Israel's military said its fighter jets targeted the Arak facility and its reactor core seal to halt it from being used to produce plutonium.
'The strike targeted the component intended for plutonium production, in order to prevent the reactor from being restored and used for nuclear weapons development,' the military said. Israel separately claimed to have struck another site around Natanz it described as being related to Iran's nuclear program.
Iranian state TV said there was 'no radiation danger whatsoever' from the attack on the Arak site. An Iranian state television reporter, speaking live in the nearby town of Khondab, said the facility had been evacuated and there was no damage to civilian areas around the reactor.
Israel had warned earlier Thursday morning it would attack the facility and urged the public to flee the area.
Iran has long maintained its program is for peaceful purposes. However, it also enriches uranium up to 60%, a short, technical step away from weapons-grade levels of 90%. Iran is the only non-nuclear-weapon state to enrich at that level.
Israel is the only nuclear-armed state in the Middle East but does not acknowledge having such weapons.
The strikes came a day after Iran's supreme leader rejected U.S. calls for surrender and warned that any military involvement by the Americans would cause 'irreparable damage to them.' Israel had lifted some restrictions on daily life Wednesday, suggesting the missile threat from Iran on its territory was easing.
Already, Israel's campaign has targeted Iran's enrichment site at Natanz, centrifuge workshops around Tehran and a nuclear site in Isfahan. Its strikes have also killed top generals and nuclear scientists.
A Washington-based Iranian human rights group said at least 639 people, including 263 civilians, have been killed in Iran and more than 1,300 wounded. In retaliation, Iran has fired some 400 missiles and hundreds of drones, killing at least 24 people in Israel and wounding hundreds.
The Arak heavy water reactor is 250 kilometers (155 miles) southwest of Tehran.
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.
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.
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Hamilton Spectator
12 minutes ago
- Hamilton Spectator
Iran's Arak heavy water reactor, hit by an Israeli airstrike, was part of Tehran's nuclear deal
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Much of the focus on Iran's nuclear program has been on Tehran's enrichment of uranium, but experts also keep a close watch on the Islamic Republic's Arak heavy water reactor. That's because the facility, some 250 kilometers (155 miles) southwest of Tehran, could produce plutonium, which can be used to make an atomic bomb. Israel pointed to just that concern when it launched airstrikes Thursday on the reactor , following its attacks on other Iranian nuclear sites, including the Nantanz enrichment facility, centrifuge workshops near Tehran, and laboratories in Isfahan. Iran acknowledged the strikes, saying at least two projectiles slammed into the compound, without giving any specifics about damage. Never online, the reactor had no uranium fuel and saw no nuclear release from the strike. However, the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations' nuclear watchdog, has warned repeatedly that such sites — whether in Iran or Ukraine — should not be military targets. Arak grew out of Iran's onetime military nuclear program After Iran's devastating 1980s war with Iraq, it began a secret military program to seek a nuclear weapon and approached four nations to purchase a heavy water-moderated reactor. After getting turned down, Iran decided to build its own. Heavy water is water in which hydrogen is replaced by deuterium and is used as a coolant for heavy water reactors. The reactors can be used for scientific purposes, but plutonium is a byproduct of the process. Before the centrifuge technology that enriches uranium to levels high enough for use in weapons became widespread, many states used heavy water reactors to pursue plutonium-fueled bombs. India and Pakistan, both nuclear-armed states , have heavy water reactors, as does Israel, which has never acknowledged having atomic weapons but is widely believed to have them. Though Iran ultimately embraced uranium-enriching centrifuges as the main driver of its program, it built the reactor, which never went online. Iran has long maintained its program is for peaceful purposes. However, it also had been enriching uranium up to 60%, a short, technical step away from weapons-grade levels of 90%. Iran was the only non-nuclear-weapon state to enrich at that level. Arak was part of Iran's nuclear deal with world powers Iran agreed under its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers to redesign the facility to alleviate proliferation concerns. That included pouring concrete into part of it, though the overall work never was completed. The Arak reactor became a point of contention after U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew from the nuclear deal in 2018. Ali Akbar Salehi, a high-ranking nuclear official in Iran, claimed on Iranian state television in 2019 that Tehran bought extra parts to replace the portion of the reactor into which officials poured concrete. Due to restrictions Iran has 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. Israeli strike likely heavily damaged the inert reactor On Thursday morning, Israel carried out an airstrike on the reactor. Black-and-white footage of the strike it released showed a bomb dropping on its dome and sending up a massive plume of fire and smoke. The U.N. nuclear watchdog noted that since it was not in operation and contained no nuclear material, there was no danger to the public after the strike from any 'radiological effects.' The IAEA said it had no information on whether the facility nearby where heavy water is produced had been hit. Israel's military said its fighter jets targeted the Arak facility and its reactor core seal to halt it from being used to produce plutonium. 'The strike targeted the component intended for plutonium production, in order to prevent the reactor from being restored and used for nuclear weapons development,' the Israelis said. ___ The Associated Press receives support for nuclear security coverage from the Carnegie Corporation of New York and Outrider Foundation . The AP is solely responsible for all content. ___ Additional AP coverage of the nuclear landscape: Error! Sorry, there was an error processing your request. There was a problem with the recaptcha. Please try again. You may unsubscribe at any time. By signing up, you agree to our terms of use and privacy policy . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google privacy policy and terms of service apply. Want more of the latest from us? Sign up for more at our newsletter page .
24 minutes ago
After opening success, Israel, US consider endgame in Iran
LONDON -- The repercussions of Israel's surprise campaign against Iran's nuclear program and military leadership launched last Friday were evident within hours. "We are racking up achievements," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said after the opening salvo, which appeared to have devastated Iran's anti-aircraft defense network and decapitated its military, killing many among the top brass, according to Israeli officials. Netanyahu, his top officials and the Israel Defense Forces have made clear some of their war goals -- the destruction of Iran's nuclear program plus the erasure of the country's ballistic missile arsenal. But, as in Israel's operations in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria, there are already signs of "rapid mission creep" in Iran, Julie Norman, a senior associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute think tank in the U.K., told ABC News. Iran's weakened defense has prompted fresh questions about "regime change" -- long a priority for Iran hawks in Israel and the U.S. seeking to topple Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the theocratic system he heads. Critics of such a policy, though, warn that government collapse in Iran could unleash regional chaos. "The record of regime change is not great, to say the least," Yossi Mekelberg of the Chatham House think tank in the U.K. told ABC News, warning that the regime's collapse would more likely produce a dangerous power vacuum in Iran than a coherent and pliant successor. "You want to experiment with chaos? Well, good luck," Mekelberg said. The nuclear front Netanyahu faces significant challenges to achieve his two expressed goals -- an end to Iran's nuclear and ballistic missile threats. On the nuclear front, Israel has inflicted damage at several of Iran's key sites. The International Atomic Energy Agency has reported damage to surface facilities at the Natanz and Isfahan enrichment sites. On Tuesday, IAEA chief Rafael Grossi said the body "identified additional elements that indicate direct impacts on the underground enrichment halls at Natanz." But Israel does not have the capabilities needed to destroy the Fordow enrichment plant -- where the IAEA says no damage has been reported -- which is built deep inside a mountain outside the city of Qom. Only American strategic bombers could deliver a payload capable of punching through up to 300 feet of mountain to reach the underground facility. Netanyahu is trying to press the White House into intervention. "Today, it's Tel Aviv, tomorrow, it's New York," the prime minister told ABC News Chief Washington Correspondent Jonathan Karl on Monday. Trump responded to Israel's opening attacks by calling for Iran to return to negotiations over its nuclear program. He has since dismissed talk of a ceasefire, said he wants a "real end" to the Iran nuclear issue and warned residents of Tehran -- of whom there are around 17 million in the wider metropolitan area -- to evacuate. On Tuesday, Trump raised the prospect of killing Khamenei and wrote on his social media platform that "we now have complete and total control of the skies over Iran," while lauding the impact of U.S. weaponry. The president has also demanded "unconditional surrender," a concept Iran's supreme leader rejected. Despite Trump's rhetoric, the U.S. has not joined Israel in attacking Iran offensively. Last year the U.S. twice assisted Israel in helping to shoot down Iranian drones and ballistic missiles Iran had launched in retaliation for Israeli attacks in Syria and Tehran. This marked the first time the U.S. actively participated in Israel's defense, which has historically taken the form of weapons sales, transfers and intelligence sharing support. As the conflict escalated this week, the U.S. deployed additional fighter jets and refueling tankers to the Middle East. The USS Nimitz aircraft carrier has also been diverted to the region, to join the USS Carl Vinson carrier which was already deployed there. The deployments, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said, are "intended to enhance our defensive posture in the region." President Trump told top advisers Tuesday that he approved attack plans for Iran that were presented to him, but said he was waiting to see if Iran would be willing to discuss ending their nuclear program and has not made a final decision on US involvement in the conflict, sources familiar with the matter said. The news of the attack plan approval was first reported by the Wall Street Journal. "As President Trump said himself today, all options remain on the table," White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Tuesday. Without destroying Fordow, Mekelberg said, the job of neutralizing Tehran's nuclear program will be incomplete. "If you want to set it three years back, that is not a good enough reason to go for a war of such scale," he said. "If the idea was to push Iran to the negotiation table and to scare them -- the Iranians are not easily scared. They fought eight years with Iraq in a much inferior situation, and they prevailed. This is not Hezbollah, this is not Hamas, this is not Islamic Jihad." Sina Toossi, a senior non-resident fellow at the Center for International Policy think tank, told ABC News that Israel and the U.S. -- if Trump opts to engage militarily against Iran -- could face a "quagmire." "To verifiably destroy what they've said they want to destroy, they need boots on the ground eventually," Toossi said, referring to Iran's nuclear facilities. Ballistic missiles Erasing Iran's ballistic missile threat is another key goal, Netanyahu has said. The IDF claims to have destroyed at least one-third of Iran's launch vehicles, along with an unknown number of stockpiled missiles. The IDF estimated that Tehran started the conflict with 2,000 missiles and as of Tuesday had fired around 400 toward Israel. The number will have been further eroded by ongoing IDF strikes across the country. "That capacity is going to be weakened," Norman said, though added that Iran has "a pretty deep arsenal, and I think those will keep coming for some time." Toossi noted that American involvement would raise the stakes for Tehran, which still has the capacity to hit American and allied targets in Iraq, across the Persian Gulf and elsewhere. If faced with an existential conflict, "they can inflict a lot of damage in their periphery," Toossi said. As time wears on, the burden on Israeli and U.S. anti-missile systems will grow, Toossi said. Interceptor missiles are finite and expensive, plus their production takes time. "There's an economics to this warfare right now that's not necessarily in the favor of Israel and the U.S.." Toossi said. "I think there's sometimes an overestimation as to how quickly other groups will surrender, or in this case other states will surrender," Norman said of Netanyahu and his government. While Israel sees its conflicts as existential, so do its enemies, Norman added. Regime change Pushing for regime change -- a goal the IDF has explicitly denied and Netanyahu has dodged questions on -- might prove the biggest gamble of Israel's attack, experts told ABC News. Such a policy makes two assumptions, Mekelberg said. "First, that you can bring down the regime, and second, that you'll get the people that you want." Indeed, the 1979 revolution that birthed the Islamic Republic "started with the liberals, not with the religious," Mekelberg said. "Look how it ended." "In any such episode, there is the best case scenario -- which usually doesn't happen -- and there is the worst-case scenario," he said. "And in between, there is the war with its own dynamics and momentum." Even if the regime is at risk of collapse, it would be hard to say when. Israel, Mekelberg said, will need to be prepared for an open-ended war of attrition with levels of destruction inside the country that "people are not used to seeing." Netanyahu has repeatedly appealed to the people of Iran to act against the government in Tehran. "This is your opportunity to stand up," he said over the weekend. But a population under fire may have different priorities. "People are going to be focusing on surviving and getting out, not on starting a revolution," Norman said. Continued attacks may also produce a rallying effect. "Many people do not like the Islamic Republic, the theocracy. But Iranians, despite their disgruntlement with the government, when it comes to Iran, its sovereignty, its stability, its territorial integrity, there's a strong sense of nationalism across the board from secular to religious, to young to old," Toossi said. "And that is really being stirred right now." Skylar Thomson of the Human Rights Activists in Iran NGO -- which is based in the U.S. -- told ABC News there is a "real atmosphere of fear" among Iranians she is in contact with. "In the initial days, people were seeing the assassinations of these Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commanders that were notoriously cruel" and considered "the leading oppressors in their world," Thomson said. But fear and uncertainty have spread as hospitals, residential areas, infrastructure and other non-military targets have been attacked, she added. "You're talking about a population of people that are already struggling because of external matters," Thomson said. "And this is just another layer of that."
The Hill
29 minutes ago
- The Hill
Iran's Arak heavy water reactor, hit by an Israeli airstrike, was part of Tehran's nuclear deal
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Much of the focus on Iran's nuclear program has been on Tehran's enrichment of uranium, but experts also keep a close watch on the Islamic Republic's Arak heavy water reactor. That's because the facility, some 250 kilometers (155 miles) southwest of Tehran, could produce plutonium, which can be used to make an atomic bomb. Israel pointed to just that concern when it launched airstrikes Thursday on the reactor, following its attacks on other Iranian nuclear sites, including the Nantanz enrichment facility, centrifuge workshops near Tehran, and laboratories in Isfahan. Iran acknowledged the strikes, saying at least two projectiles slammed into the compound, without giving any specifics about damage. Never online, the reactor had no uranium fuel and saw no nuclear release from the strike. However, the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations' nuclear watchdog, has warned repeatedly that such sites — whether in Iran or Ukraine — should not be military targets. After Iran's devastating 1980s war with Iraq, it began a secret military program to seek a nuclear weapon and approached four nations to purchase a heavy water-moderated reactor. After getting turned down, Iran decided to build its own. Heavy water is water in which hydrogen is replaced by deuterium and is used as a coolant for heavy water reactors. The reactors can be used for scientific purposes, but plutonium is a byproduct of the process. Before the centrifuge technology that enriches uranium to levels high enough for use in weapons became widespread, many states used heavy water reactors to pursue plutonium-fueled bombs. India and Pakistan, both nuclear-armed states, have heavy water reactors, as does Israel, which has never acknowledged having atomic weapons but is widely believed to have them. Though Iran ultimately embraced uranium-enriching centrifuges as the main driver of its program, it built the reactor, which never went online. Iran has long maintained its program is for peaceful purposes. However, it also had been enriching uranium up to 60%, a short, technical step away from weapons-grade levels of 90%. Iran was the only non-nuclear-weapon state to enrich at that level. Iran agreed under its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers to redesign the facility to alleviate proliferation concerns. That included pouring concrete into part of it, though the overall work never was completed. The Arak reactor became a point of contention after U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew from the nuclear deal in 2018. Ali Akbar Salehi, a high-ranking nuclear official in Iran, claimed on Iranian state television in 2019 that Tehran bought extra parts to replace the portion of the reactor into which officials poured concrete. Due to restrictions Iran has 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. On Thursday morning, Israel carried out an airstrike on the reactor. Black-and-white footage of the strike it released showed a bomb dropping on its dome and sending up a massive plume of fire and smoke. The U.N. nuclear watchdog noted that since it was not in operation and contained no nuclear material, there was no danger to the public after the strike from any 'radiological effects.' The IAEA said it had no information on whether the facility nearby where heavy water is produced had been hit. Israel's military said its fighter jets targeted the Arak facility and its reactor core seal to halt it from being used to produce plutonium. 'The strike targeted the component intended for plutonium production, in order to prevent the reactor from being restored and used for nuclear weapons development,' the Israelis said. ___ The Associated Press receives support for nuclear security coverage from the Carnegie Corporation of New York and Outrider Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content. ___ Additional AP coverage of the nuclear landscape:
