Israel strikes Iran centrifuge production and weapons manufacturing sites - why it's a big blow to Khamenei's nuke desire | WION Explains

Israel-Iran War: Amid the ongoing tensions with Iran, the Israeli military claimed that on Wednesday (June 18), it launched an extensive airstrike on Iran's military infrastructure using 50 fighter jets. The IDF also said that the Iranian centrifuge production site in Tehran was also targeted in the overnight strike. The strikes came as one of the most significant attacks in the ongoing war between the Israeli Republic and Netanyahu's regime.

Taking to the social media platform X, the IDF said it had attacked a "centrifuge production site and several weapons production sites of the Iranian regime last night."

The Israeli Army said, "More than 50 Air Force fighter jets, under precise intelligence guidance from the Intelligence Branch, have completed a series of attacks on military targets in the Tehran area in recent hours."

The IDF said that the site in Tehran attacked was responsible for expanding the scope and rate of Iran's uranium enrichment to develop nuclear weapons.

Moreover, Israel also claimed of attacked several weapons production sites of the Islamic Republic.

The Israeli Army said that among the attacked plants, "a site for the production of raw materials and components for assembling the surface-to-surface missiles that the Iranian regime has launched and continues to launch towards the State of Israel," was also included.

Israel said the attack was aimed at the IDF's effort to damage the Iranian regime's nuclear weapons program.

Why is it a big deal?

Centrifuges are essential to uranium enrichment. It is a process to refine uranium for civilian energy use - and for nuclear weapons production.

Centrifuges are very delicate machines and are used to spin uranium hexafluoride gas at extremely high speeds. Hence, even a minor disruption like a power cut can collapse the entire process.

How bad is the situation for Iran?

This came after the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said that there is a strong possibility that all the 15,000 centrifuges (roughly), operating at Iran's biggest uranium enrichment plant at Natanz, were badly damaged or destroyed in the ongoing war, either by Israeli strikes or a power cut.

Previously, Israel targeted the Isfahan uranium conversion facility, which turns raw mined uranium into uranium hexafluoride (UF6), a feed gas for centrifuges.

IAEA chief Rafael Grossi elaborated on the damage to four buildings at Isfahan - “The central chemical laboratory, a uranium conversion plant, the Tehran reactor fuel manufacturing plant and the UF4 [uranium tetrafluoride] to EU [enriched uranium] metal processing facility, which was under construction.”

In addition, an unnamed Israeli official told the news agency Reuters that the Fordo plant, built into a mountain near the holy central city of Qom, has not been attacked yet, but it might happen.

This was days after Israel’s ambassador in Washington, Yechiel Leiter, told Fox News that this entire war between Israel and Iran will have to be "completed with the elimination of Fordo."

He said there was no point in this entire war if Israel left an infrastructure like Fordo in place.