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Israel attacked Iran's underground Fordow nuclear facility, confirmed by both Iranian and Israeli officials. Simultaneously, blasts were reported in Tehran and Jerusalem.
Israel on Monday carried out a fresh round of attacks on Iran’s underground Fordow nuclear site south of Tehran, Iranian state television reported.
“The aggressor attacked the Fordow nuclear site again," Tasnim news agency reported, quoting a spokesperson for the crisis management authority in Qom province, where the site is located.
The development was later confirmed by Israel’s Defence Minister, Israel Katz, who said his country was attacking with “unprecedented intensity", targets in central Tehran.
There was no immediate word on the damage at the site.
Meanwhile, loud blasts were heard in northern Tehran.
Blasts were also heard in Jerusalem after the Israeli army warned of Iranian missile strikes.
On Sunday, the United States unleashed on Iran’s Fordow fuel enrichment plant its massive “bunker-buster" bombs, widely seen as the best chance of damaging or destroying the facility built deep into a mountain and untouched during Israel’s week-long offensive, according to the Associated Press.
Air Force General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said 14 of the bombs were used in Sunday’s attack on Fordow and a second target.
The US is the only military capable of dropping the weapons, and the movement of B-2 stealth bombers toward Asia on Saturday had signalled possible activity by the US Israeli leaders had made no secret of their hopes that President Donald Trump would join their week-old war against Iran, though they had also suggested they had backup plans for destroying the site.
Fordow is Iran’s second nuclear enrichment facility after Natanz, its main facility.
Fordow is smaller than Natanz, and is built into the side of a mountain near the city of Qom, about 60 miles (95 kilometres) southwest of Tehran.
Construction is believed to have started around 2006, and it became operational in 2009, the same year Tehran publicly acknowledged its existence.
In addition to being an estimated 80 meters (260 feet) under rock and soil, the site is reportedly protected by Iranian and Russian surface-to-air missile systems. Those air defences, however, likely have already been struck in the Israeli campaign.
Still, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said the goal of attacking Iran was to eliminate its missile and nuclear programme, which he described as an existential threat to Israel, and officials have said Fordow was part of that plan.
“This entire operation really has to be completed with the elimination of Fordow," Yechiel Leiter, Israel’s ambassador to the US, told Fox News on Friday.
