The International Atomic Energy Agency said the centrifuge halls at Iran’s Natanz facility were hit.
Israeli airstrikes have damaged an underground Iranian nuclear facility, the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog said on June 17.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said in a social media post on Tuesday that it believes that Israel’s initial aerial attacks on Iran’s Natanz enrichment site this past week struck the facility’s underground centrifuge halls.
“Based on continued analysis of high-resolution satellite imagery collected after Friday’s attacks, the IAEA has identified additional elements that indicate direct impacts on the underground enrichment halls at Natanz,” the IAEA said in a post on X.
The Natanz facility, about 130 miles southeast of Tehran, is protected by anti-aircraft batteries, fencing, and Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard. The IAEA had earlier said that Israeli strikes had destroyed an above-ground enrichment hall at Natanz and knocked out electrical equipment that powered the facility.
In its X post on Tuesday, the IAEA said that there was “no change to report” at the country’s Esfahan and Fordow nuclear sites.
Rafael Mariano Grossi, the head of the IAEA, said in a conference on Monday that U.N. inspectors will remain in Iran to inspect the facilities “as soon as safety conditions allow.”
But he warned that “military escalation threatens lives, increases the chance of a radiological release with serious consequences for people and the environment and delays indispensable work towards a diplomatic solution for the long-term assurance that Iran does not acquire a nuclear weapon.”
Radiation emitted inside the damaged Natanz facility can pose a significant danger if uranium is ingested or inhaled, he said, adding, “The level of radioactivity outside the Natanz site has remained unchanged and at normal levels, indicating no external radiological impact to the population or the environment from this event.”
Iran has long stressed that its nuclear enrichment sites are for civilian purposes only, denying assertions that the regime is attempting to build a nuclear weapon.
Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, have said that Israel launched airstrikes on Iran because they had received intelligence that Iran was enriching uranium at levels to make nuclear weapons.
