Iranian nuclear sites are “fully safe” and have not been impacted by Israeli strikes, the country’s regime says.
Israel carried out limited strikes on areas of Iran early Friday in retaliation for Tehran firing a barrage of missiles and drones at Israel last Saturday.
The region surrounding the city of Isfahan — home to the country’s “nuclear energy mountain” — was among the areas targeted in the strike.
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This satellite image from Planet Labs PBC shows Iran’s nuclear site in Isfahan. Iran fired air defenses at a major air base and a nuclear site early Friday morning near the central city of Isfahan after spotting drones that were suspected to be part of an Israeli attack in retaliation for Tehran’s unprecedented drone-and-missile assault on the country. (Planet Labs PBC via AP)
Isfahan is home to Iran’s Uranium Conversion Facility and three research reactors. The country’s underground Natanz enrichment site is also in the region.
Iranian state media stated following the attack that the nation’s atomic sites were “fully safe” and not struck by the missiles.
“The explosion this morning in the sky of Isfahan was related to the shooting of air defense systems at a suspicious object that did not cause any damage,” Iranian army commander Gen. Abdolrahim Mousavi said.
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The International Atomic Energy Agency, a United Nations affiliate watchdog organization, later confirmed “there is no damage to Iran’s nuclear sites.”
The agency said it “continues to call for extreme restraint from everybody and reiterates that nuclear facilities should never be a target in military conflicts.”
Details surrounding the intended target of the strike – if there was one – were not immediately available, but Fox News was previously able to confirm the target was “not nuclear or civilian.”
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Vehicles drive past an anti-Israeli banner showing missiles being launched in a square in downtown Tehran, Iran. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
A senior Iranian official allegedly told Reuters that Iran has no plans to immediately respond to the Israeli strike, which was described differently in Iranian state media. The explosions heard in Isfahan were allegedly a result of the country’s air defense systems activating and not a missile attack, the official told Reuters.
Former Israel Defense Forces spokesman Jonathan Conricus wrote on X that while Iran appears to downplay the strike, he “think[s] they’ve gotten the message.”
Fox News Digital’s Bradford Betz, Jennifer Griffin and Elizabeth Pritchett contributed to this report.
