Satellite imagery has shown Israel struck nuclear testing sites in its weekend air attacks on Iran, in addition to air defense systems, perhaps opening the way for future raids if threatened by Tehran.
Iran’s president, Masoud Pezashkian, wrote to the UN on Sunday warning that Tehran has the right to respond to the attacks while countries including the US, UK and France, said the cycle of tit-for-tat strikes must now end.
Images from satellite firm Planet Labs showed that in the four-hour attack overnight Saturday, a military base in Parchin near Tehran, where nuclear tests were allegedly conducted in the past, was damaged.
While Israel had been warned by its biggest ally, the US, not to strike Iran’s nuclear sites, Parchin was marked by Iran as military, not nuclear, allowing them to evade the veto. It was also one of the sites which had been banned from inspections by the UN’s nuclear team.
The UN atomic agency, IAEA, had marked it as a site where Iran once worked on nuclear weapons. At least three buildings were hit, including solid-propellant facilities for missiles.
David Albright, a former UN weapons inspector who heads the Institute for Science and International Security research group, and Decker Eveleth, an associate research analyst at CNA, a Washington think tank, told Reuters that as well as Parchin, Israel struck Khojir, which according to Eveleth, is a sprawling missile production site near Tehran.
In posts on X, Albright said commercial satellite imagery showed that Israel hit a building in Parchin called Taleghan 2 that was used for testing activities during the Amad Plan, Iran's defunct nuclear weapons development program shuttered in 2003.
Albright, head of the Institute for Science and International Security research group, was given access to the program's files for a book after they were stolen from Tehran by Israel's Mossad intelligence agency in 2018.
On X, he said the archives revealed that Iran kept important test equipment at the site called Taleghan 2. While Iran may have removed key materials before the airstrike, he said, "even if no equipment remained inside" the building would have provided "intrinsic value" for future nuclear weapons-related activities.
Analysis from the think tank, The Institute of Science, also said that while the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency never visited the building, not deemed a high priority site, “it is possible Iran only removed the most incriminating equipment in its clean up effort, in the high explosive test chamber,” it said in a post on X.
The non-proliferation group research explained: “If so, Israel’s alleged destruction may have destroyed valuable equipment useful in further nuclear weapons development.”
From the imagery, Taleghan 2 appears to have been destroyed, as were the other three buildings associated with rocket motor production nearby and secured separately.
The photographs also confirm that Israel attacked another base, in Hujir east of Tehran, where buildings used to mix fuel for ballistic missiles were also damaged.
It is consistent with Israel’s policy of targeting nuclear related sites without touching the sensitive facilities such as the nuclear enrichment facility, Natanz.
Jason Brodsky, from United Against Nuclear Iran, said the attacks this weekend send “a very clear message” to Iran.
“Israel is laying the groundwork to attack your oil and petrochemical refineries in the next round should you retaliate,” he wrote on X after Israel struck with great accuracy air defences around Iran’s critical energy sites. While the facilities were avoided, there were clear warnings of what could come should Iran hit back.
The sites targeted by Israel, according to the New York Times, included defenses at the Bandar Imam Khomeini petrochemical complex, in Khuzestan Province; at the major economic port Bandar Imam Khomeini, adjacent to it; and at the Abadan oil refinery.
Air-defense systems were also struck in Ilam Province, at the refinery for the gas field, called Tange Bijar, officials told the newspaper, including one from Iran’s oil ministry.
Pezeshkian’s letter to the UN Secretary General said Iran “reserves its inherent right to legal and legitimate response to these criminal attacks at the appropriate time”.
World leaders have been urging for an end to the cycle of violence.
In the early hours of Sunday morning Tehran time, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin warned Iran against responding to Israel’s strikes.
After speaking to Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, he wrote on X: “ I reaffirmed the United States’ ironclad commitment to Israel’s security and support for Israel's right to defend itself … and made clear that Iran should not make the mistake of responding to Israel’s strikes, which should mark the end of this exchange.”
On Saturday, British PM Keir Starker said: "I am clear that Israel has the right to defend itself against Iranian aggression. I'm equally clear that we need to avoid further regional escalation and urge all sides to show restraint. Iran should not respond.”
The Israeli military said three waves of Israeli jets struck missile factories and other sites near Tehran and in western Iran early on Saturday in retaliation for Tehran's October 1 barrage of more than 200 ballistic missiles against Israel.
Playing down the damage, Iran’s military said the Israeli warplanes used "very light warheads" to strike border radar systems in the provinces of Ilam, Khuzestan and around Tehran.
Ten shafts in this underground labyrinth stretch from the bowels of this formerly Hezbollah-controlled village into civilian homes, where ammunition, rocket-propelled grenades, and AK-47 assault rifles were found, said an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesman.
Iran International gained access to the tunnel during a journalist embed with the Israeli military from the evening of October 21 into early the following day. The tunnel system, discovered by Israeli forces who entered Lebanon just a week ago, spans over 1 km in length and ranges between 12 and 40 meters deep. An Israeli soldier commented, “It’s the largest one we’ve found so far.”
Intense firefights took place within the tunnel between Israeli forces and Hezbollah militants before Israeli soldiers neutralized the last four militants there, according to an army spokesperson. Clearing the tunnel of Hezbollah fighters took several days. Meanwhile, Israel ‘captured three terrorists’ about 3 km from the tunnel.
As troops moved deeper into Lebanon, Israeli artillery fire echoed overhead. Inside the tunnel, descending in pitch darkness to avoid alerting Hezbollah, they encountered a highly advanced underground complex designed for militant residence and storage.
One Israeli soldier described Hezbollah’s tunnel system as more “stable and sophisticated” than the “Gaza metro,” a vast underground network used by Hamas, estimated at 500 km in length. Compared to Gaza’s narrow passages, Hezbollah’s tunnels are notably larger and more structurally sound, he added.
Hezbollah’s main strategic partner, the Islamic Republic of Iran, played a key role in filling many of the rooms of the tunnel system with armaments, an IDF soldier said.
“Here are Iranian weapons systems,” he said, pointing to a stockpile of weapons. “We can obviously see the fingerprints here of the Iranian regime with the loads of weapons that have been flown into here by them instead of helping Lebanon become a beautiful country,” he added in political tit-for-tat familiar in the decades-long Arab Israeli conflict.
The IDF spokesman said: “We found long-range missiles here that can easily be fired into the Galilee.”
The Hezbollah gunmen, “dressed up as civilians, came into here and got their uniforms and weapons systems and their plans to infiltrate Israel,” said the spokesman. The battle to seize the tunnel “saved the lives of thousands of Israelis,” he emphasized.
After 17 years of relative calm between Israel and Hezbollah, skirmishes began one day after the October 7 Hamas invasion of Israel when more than 1,000 civilians were killed and 250 taken hostage. Hezbollah began shelling northern Israel in support of Hamas once the Israeli military began attacking Gaza.
After one year of relentless air strikes and ground fighting, Israel has been able to seriously weaken Hamas and to an extent the Hezbollah, but in the process tens of thousands of people were killed in Gaza, including more than 17,000 militants, according to Israel. Hundreds of Hezbollah militants have also been eliminated. The Lebanese government says that hundreds of civilians have lost their lives and hundreds of thousands have become refugees.
The provisions for the Hezbollah fighters:
The tunnel system can lodge more than 500 gunmen, and the food storage was enough to last for weeks, the IDF said. Crates of canned food filled a sizable part of one room.
One large room was filled with mattresses and in others, mattresses were on the floor. The tunnel is equipped with “lights, backup lights, generators, toilets, washing machine, and a small kitchen,” an IDF spokesman noted. In short, enough “supplies to survive here for months.” Medical provisions and a large shower area were part of the tunnel project.
Israeli officers said they believed the tunnels were only built as a platform for accumulating forces to invade Israel. But in the aftermath of October 7, Hezbollah chose to use its vast arsenal to fire rockets and launch drones into Israel, forcing tens of thousands to evacuate.
An Israeli officer said, “We came here with specific intelligence to find this tunnel.”
Almost all of the 22,492 residents of Kiryat Shmona, leaving only around 3,000 behind, were forced to flee after Hezbollah began firing missiles into Israel on October 8, 2023. The town is now nearly deserted. Over 60,000 Israelis have been compelled to leave their homes across 43 northern communities due to Hezbollah's attacks.
Hundreds of pro-Hezbollah Shiites lived in the village where the tunnel was discovered, according to the Israeli military.
Brig.-Gen. Guy Levy, the commander of the IDF’s 98th Paratroopers Division, said, “Our main goal here is to find and locate each and every terrorist site in the village and in the underground site and destroy them and make sure we can bring our citizens back to a normal life in the north. We will do whatever it takes.”
Above ground, the late October night required a light jacket or sweater. However, after a short stay in the tunnel, the oppressive air there caused light sauna-like sweating. Unplugged fans and ammunition dotted the pathways of the tunnel.
As I departed, a member of the division’s 35th Paratroopers Brigade said the operation to root out Hezbollah and their infrastructure was being carried out “to ensure that an October 7 never happens again for future generations of Israelis.”
Hezbollah attacks on northern Israel since October 2023 have killed 30 civilians—28 Israelis, one Thai citizen and one Indian citizen. A total of 45 Israeli soldiers and reservists have died since the IDF entered southern Lebanon in late September. The IDF says it has killed more than 1,500 Hezbollah fighters and wounded more than 11,000 others in Operation Northern Arrows, the third Lebanon war.
IDF’s Maj. Doron Spielman remarked in the back of the military transport that the disadvantage for Israel is that “Lebanon has the advantage because it is higher [on the landscape] and anti-tank weapons can be fired.”
He said the Kibbutz—Misgav Am—and other small border communities that attract tourists, including his family, with Airbnb offers, were swiftly closed in October 2023. The Kibbutzim and towns in the Upper Galilee in northern Israel on the border were declared a closed military zone in late September as the IDF started its ground offensive into south Lebanon.
As the journalists waited for the heavily armed military transporters to take us back to the Israeli side, a full moon slightly covered by a sliver, gray cloud provided some light. An Israeli drone with a piercing green light hovered in the sky.
The journey back to Israel was rocky along the rough hilly terrain of south Lebanon. A kind of sandstorm reminiscent of a scene out of the English Patient engulfed the IDF military vehicles along the dusty dilapidated roadways.
Upon arrival in Kiryat Shmona, a taxi driver for the media said two sirens had sounded, prompting him and the soldiers at the meet up location for the press to flee into an underground garage for safety. The driver said the Iron Dome intercepted Hezbollah rockets.
"Israel’s elimination of top leaders from Hezbollah and Hamas has received significant praise from counter-terrorism experts and the Israeli public for advancing efforts to dismantle these Iran-backed militant groups."
In an interview with Iran International, Yigal Carmon, a former counter-terrorism advisor to two Israeli prime ministers, warned that “In the case of Islamist terrorist organizations that are self-indoctrinated by the worst brand of Islam, the loss of leadership does not necessarily imply a breakdown of the spiritual power to continue, particularly in that they have prepared themselves for a long-term fight. “
Carmon, who famously predicted the time frame of the Hamas invasion of Israel, added “Therefore we are not expecting to see a breakdown in Hezbollah’s overall power to continue as long as they have the capabilities, which we saw they have. Israel will have to for the foreseeable future eradicate Hezbollah politically, militarily and economically.”
Carmon highlighted Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah’s flawed military judgment before October 7, noting that if Nasrallah had attempted a Gaza-style assault rather than limited cross-border bombings, Israel could have faced an existential threat. He argued that Israel’s preparedness against Hezbollah was due to Nasrallah's miscalculation, which spared Israel from a greater crisis.
He continued, “Israel was virtually saved from an existential crisis. The existential threat would have forced Israel to use cataclysmic powers against Iran.”