The overnight strikes killed several top Iranian military officials.
The head of the United Nations’ nuclear agency has confirmed that an Iranian nuclear facility was damaged during widespread Israeli strikes in Tehran overnight.
International Atomic Energy Agency Director Mariano Grossi said in a statement on Friday that attacks carried out by Israel on nuclear facilities were confirmed to him by Iranian officials and that the “Natanz enrichment site has been impacted,” but that radiation levels are not elevated.
“This development is deeply concerning. I have repeatedly stated that nuclear facilities must never be attacked, regardless of the context or circumstances, as it could harm both people and the environment,” the U.N. official said.
“Such attacks have serious implications for nuclear safety, security and safeguards, as well as regional and international peace and security.”
Gross’s statement did not go into detail about the damage that was done during the strikes.
A spokesman for the Natanz site told Iranian state-run Tasnim News that only superficial damage was done to the nuclear facility, located in central Iran. The spokesman, Behrouz Kamalvandi, added that the uranium enrichment facility in another province was unharmed during the Israeli strikes.
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei suggested via state-run media that Iran would take action in response to the strikes with “the powerful arm of the Islamic Republic’s Armed Forces,” which will not “let them go unpunished.”
Israel, he added, “has prepared for itself a bitter, painful fate, which it will definitely see,” noting that multiple commanders and scientists were killed in the strikes.
A number of top Iranian military officials, including the head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, Hossein Salami, were killed in the strikes. Also killed were Iran’s chief of staff for the armed forces, the ranking commander of the Revolutionary Guards, and the head of the Guard’s missile program.
Meanwhile, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said his nation would “strongly take action” against Israel following its attacks on the country. In a televised address Friday, Pezeshkian urged people to unite behind the theocratic government.
U.S. President Donald Trump had previously warned that Israel or the United States could launch airstrikes against Iranian nuclear facilities if negotiators failed to reach a deal on Iran’s rapidly advancing nuclear program. A sixth round of Iran–U.S. talks is scheduled to begin on Sunday in Oman.
On Friday morning, Trump wrote on social media that Iran should come to the negotiating table on its nuclear program before it’s too late.
“Two months ago I gave Iran a 60 day ultimatum to ‘make a deal,’” he wrote on Truth Social. “They should have done it! Today is day 61. I told them what to do, but they just couldn’t get there. Now they have, perhaps, a second chance!”
Trump also called the Israeli strikes on Iran “excellent” and suggested more attacks may come.
“I think it’s been excellent. We gave them a chance and they didn’t take it,” Trump told ABC on Friday morning. “They got hit hard, very hard. They got hit about as hard as you’re going to get hit. And there’s more to come, a lot more.”
Iran’s U.N. Mission on Friday asked for an emergency meeting of the Security Council following the Israeli attacks. The emergency session is likely to take place on Friday afternoon, the mission said.
