The caution emerged via a social media post on X, featuring a satellite photo of the plant encircled in red, akin to prior alerts preceding attacks.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Israel’s military warned people Thursday to evacuate the area around Iran’s Arak heavy water reactor.
The warning came in a social media post on X. It included a satellite image of the plant in a red circle like other warnings that preceded strikes.
On day seven of its airstrikes on Iran, Israel acted shortly after Iran’s supreme leader dismissed U.S. demands for capitulation and cautioned that American military involvement would lead to “irreparable damage to them.” Simultaneously, Israel eased certain restrictions on daily activities, indicating a reduction in the missile threat from Iran.
The Israeli military said Thursday’s round of airstrikes targeted Tehran and other areas of Iran, without elaborating.
Thus far, Israel’s offensive has hit Iran’s enrichment facility at Natanz, centrifuge workshops near Tehran, and a nuclear site in Isfahan. Additionally, these attacks have resulted in the deaths of high-ranking generals and nuclear experts.
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. Some have hit apartment buildings in central Israel, causing heavy damage.
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Iran redesign the Arak reactor to limit the amount of plutonium it produces, stepping in for the U.S., which had withdrawn from the project after President Donald Trump’s decision in 2018 to unilaterally withdraw America from the nuclear deal.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.
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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