KTAF NEWS

An Iranian missile strike has hit the town of Dimona in southern Israel, near to a nuclear facility.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said it was not aware of any damage to the nuclear research facility located about eight miles (13km) outside Dimona.

Iranian state TV said the strike was in response to a reported attack on Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility earlier on Saturday. The IAEA said “no increase in off-site radiation levels” had been reported after that incident.

Rafael Grossi, the IAEA’s director general, said “maximum military restraint should be observed, in particular in the vicinity of nuclear facilities”.

Israel’s ambulance service said it was treating 40 people following the strike in Dimona, including 37 with mild injuries and a 10-year-old boy in serious condition.

It said 68 others were being treated following a separate strike in the nearby town of Arad, including 47 with mild injuries and 10 in serious condition.

“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”.

Israeli authorities are now investigating how 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 around 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 seriousness by Israel.

Both Israel and the US 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 (AEOI) 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”.

Natanz was also targeted in the first days of the war, which started on 28 February, by US-Israeli strikes, as well as during the 12-day war in June.

Asked about Natanz on Saturday, the Israel Defence Forces told Israeli and international media that it was not aware of a strike in the area.