South Pars—shared with Qatar—is the world’s largest natural gas field and a cornerstone of Iran’s economy.
Israel said on April 6 that it carried out an airstrike on Iran’s largest petrochemical facility—the South Pars plant at Asaluyeh—as hostilities continued and diplomatic efforts to secure a cease-fire faced mounting pressure ahead of a U.S. deadline.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said the strike inflicted massive economic damage and hit a key pillar of Iran’s industrial base, responsible for around 50 percent of the country’s petrochemical production.
“The IDF has just carried out a powerful strike on Iran’s largest petrochemical facility,“ Katz said. ”The damage to the Iranian regime is estimated at tens of billions of dollars.”
Strike Targets South Pars Hub
Iranian media earlier reported that attacks targeted facilities at the South Pars natural gas field in southern Bushehr province, blaming the United States and Israel, though neither country initially confirmed responsibility for that specific location.
Katz later confirmed Israel had struck the South Pars petrochemical complex at Asaluyeh, aligning with those reports and marking one of the most direct attacks yet on Iran’s energy lifeline.
South Pars—shared with Qatar, where it is known as the North Field—is the world’s largest natural gas field and a cornerstone of Iran’s economy. The offshore reserve under the Persian Gulf supplies a significant share of global liquefied natural gas.
An Israeli strike on South Pars facilities in March triggered a wave of Iranian retaliatory attacks on oil and gas infrastructure across Gulf Arab states.
At the time, Iran condemned Israeli strikes on South Pars, with President Masoud Pezeshkian warning of “uncontrollable consequences” that “could engulf the entire world.”
When asked about the latest strike, Israeli military spokesperson Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani said there would be “no immunity” for Iran as cease-fire talks continue.
Leadership Targets and Broader Campaign
The strike on petrochemical infrastructure came alongside continued Israeli targeting of Iran’s military leadership.
Israeli officials said an airstrike in Tehran on Monday killed Maj. Gen. Majid Khademi, the intelligence chief of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). It was one of the highest-profile targeted killings since the conflict escalated in late February.
“The Revolutionary Guard are shooting at civilians and we are eliminating the leaders of the terrorists,” Katz said. “Iran’s leaders live with a sense of being targeted. We will continue to hunt them down one by one.”
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said Khademi played a central role in advancing operations abroad and overseeing domestic surveillance. Iran’s state-affiliated Tasnim news agency confirmed his death, describing it as a “terrorist attack by the American-Zionist enemy.”
Separately, Israel said it eliminated a senior figure overseeing commercial operations at the IRGC’s oil headquarters, amid a broader strategy to disrupt both military leadership and financial networks tied to Iran’s regional operations.
Katz said Israel had “severely damaged” Iran’s steel and petrochemical sectors and would continue to strike what he described as the regime’s economic backbone.
By Tom Ozimek
