Iranian Missiles Injure 160 in Towns Near Israeli Nuclear Site

MOSHE SHAI/FLASH90

View of the nuclear reactor in Dimona.

More than 160 people have been injured - some seriously - in Iranian missile strikes on two southern Israeli towns close to a nuclear facility, Israeli emergency officials say.

Iranian state television said on Saturday that a missile strike on Dimona, home to a nuclear facility in southern Israel, was a "response" to an earlier attack on its Natanz nuclear site. Dimona sits near one of the most sensitive locations in Israel: the Shimon Peres Negev Nuclear Research Center, long linked to Israel’s undeclared nuclear weapons programme.

The Israeli army confirmed "a direct impact of an Iranian missile" on a building in the city that houses a nuclear research facility, AFP reported. 

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said it is not aware of any damage to the nuclear research facility located outside Dimona.

In Arad, local residents said the blasts they heard were terrifying. The missile badly damaged several buildings, leaving a deep crater.

"This is a very severe scene," emergency medical technician Yakir Talkar said in a statement describing Arad, adding there were "many wounded with varying degrees of injury".

The nearby town of Dimona experienced a similar missile strike.

Israeli authorities are now investigating how the Iranian missiles made it through air defence systems.

"In both Dimona and Arad, interceptors were launched that failed to hit the threats, resulting in two direct hits by ballistic missiles with warheads weighing hundreds of kilograms," Israeli firefighters said.

The Shimon Peres Negev Nuclear Research Center - located in the Negev desert - is often referred to colloquially as the "Dimona reactor". It is long accepted as holding Israel's undeclared arsenal of nuclear weapons.

Officially, the site is said to focus solely on research but for about six decades, it has been an open secret that Israel developed a nuclear bomb there, even if each succeeding government has maintained a position of ambiguity over this.

It has meant that Israel is the only nuclear power in the Middle East. So any indication that it is being targeted is taken with the utmost gravity by Israel. Both Israel and the U.S. have set the elimination of any possible Iranian capacity to develop a nuclear bomb as the key aim of the war.

Iran's own Atomic Energy Organisation described the attack on Natanz as a violation of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, though it said "no leakage of radioactive materials" was reported and there was "no danger to residents of the surrounding areas".

Source: BBC, AFP, Middle East Eye



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