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| Iran insists its nuclear programme is entirely peaceful and that it enriches uranium to produce fuel for power plants like Bushehr |
Iran - Israel Conflict: Was Iran months away from producing a nuclear bomb?
Israel has struck dozens of targets in Iran, damaging the uranium enrichment plant at Natanz and killing top military commanders and nuclear scientists in Tehran.
After the first wave of attacks on Thursday night, the Iranian foreign minister condemned Israel's "reckless" attacks on his country's "peaceful nuclear facilities". Iran has since launched retaliatory airstrikes on Israel.
Abbas Araghchi said Natanz was operated under the supervision of the global nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and that attacks on the facility threatened a "radiological disaster".
However, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that the operation was necessary to "minimise the Iranian threat to Israel's existence".
He said Israel took the action because "if it is not stopped, Iran could produce nuclear weapons in a very short time".
"It could take a year. It could happen within a few months", he warned.
Is there evidence Iran was working on a nuclear bomb?
The Israeli military said it had collected intelligence indicating "substantial progress has been made in the Iranian regime's efforts to produce weapons components adapted for a nuclear bomb", including uranium metal cores and neutron source initiators to trigger a nuclear explosion.
Kelsey Davenport, director of nonproliferation policy at the US-based Arms Control Association, said the Israeli prime minister had presented "no clear or compelling evidence that Iran is on the verge of building a weapon".
"Iran has been at near zero breakout for months," she told the BBC, referring to the time it would take Iran to obtain enough fissile material for a bomb if it wanted to do so.
"Likewise, the assessment that Iran could develop a crude nuclear weapon within a matter of months is not new."
She said some of Iran's nuclear activities would be applicable to developing a bomb, but US intelligence agencies had assessed that Iran was not engaged in major weapons manufacturing work.
This March, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard told Congress that Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium was “at its highest level” and “unprecedented for a non-nuclear weapon state.”
But she also said the US intelligence community "continues to assess that Iran is not pursuing nuclear weapons and that Supreme Leader [Ayatollah Ali] Khamenei has not authorised a nuclear weapons programme that he suspended in 2003".
"If Netanyahu was motivated solely by Iran's proliferation risk, Israel would likely have shared that intelligence with the United States and the initial attack would likely have targeted all of Iran's key nuclear facilities," Ms Davenport said.
Last week, the IAEA said in its latest quarterly report that Iran had accumulated enough uranium enriched to 60% purity - a small, technical step away from weapons grade or 90% - to potentially build nine nuclear bombs. It said this was of "grave concern" given the proliferation risks.
The agency also said it could not assure that the Iranian nuclear program was entirely peaceful because Iran was not complying with its investigation of man-made uranium particles discovered by inspectors at three undeclared nuclear sites.
What do we know about Iran's nuclear program?
Iran has always said its nuclear program is entirely peaceful and that it has never sought to develop nuclear weapons.
However, a decade-long investigation by the IAEA found evidence that Iran conducted "a variety of activities related to the development of a nuclear explosive device" from the late 1980s until 2003, when projects under "Project Amad" were halted.
Iran continued some activities until 2009 - when Western powers revealed the construction of the Fordow underground enrichment facility - but there were "no credible indications" of weapons development after that, the agency concluded.
In 2015, Iran agreed to a deal with six world powers under which it accepted restrictions on its nuclear activities and allowed stricter monitoring by IAEA inspectors in exchange for relief from tough sanctions.
Key limitations included the production of enriched uranium, which is used to make reactor fuel as well as nuclear weapons.
But US President Donald Trump abandoned the deal during his first term in 2018, saying it did little to stop the path to the bomb, and reimposed US sanctions.
Iran retaliated by violating sanctions - particularly those related to enrichment.
Under the nuclear deal, enrichment was not allowed at Fordow for 15 years. However, in 2021 Iran resumed enriching uranium up to 20% purity.
On Thursday, the IAEA's 35-nation Board of Governors formally declared Iran in breach of its nonproliferation obligations for the first time in 20 years.
Iran said it would respond to the resolution by building a new uranium enrichment facility at a "safe location" and replacing first-generation centrifuges used to enrich uranium at the Fordow enrichment plant with more advanced, sixth-generation machines.
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| Israeli strikes in Tehran on Thursday night targeted nuclear scientists and military commanders |
Iran - Israel Conflict: What damage has Israel done to Iran's nuclear infrastructure?
The Israeli military said on Friday that its first round of air strikes damaged the underground centrifuge hall at Natanz, as well as critical infrastructure enabling the site to operate.
The IAEA director-general, Rafael Grossi, told the UN Security Council that the above-ground pilot fuel enrichment plant (PFEP) and power infrastructure at Natanz were destroyed. He said there was no sign of a physical attack on the underground hall, but a loss of power could damage the centrifuges there.
The US-based Institute for Science and International Security said the destruction of the PFEP was significant because the facility was used to produce 60%-enriched uranium and develop advanced centrifuges.
Ms Davenport also said the attacks on Natanz would extend Iran's "breakout time", but it was too early to assess the full impact.
"Until the IAEA gets access to the site, we will not have a clear picture of how quickly Iran can resume operations there or whether Iran is able to move the uranium," he said.
Later on Friday, Iran informed the IAEA that Israel had attacked the Fordow enrichment plant and the Isfahan Nuclear Technology Center.
The Israeli military said the attack in Isfahan destroyed "the metallic uranium production facility, infrastructure for reconverting enriched uranium, laboratories and additional infrastructure".
"As long as Fordow remains operational, Iran will still pose a proliferation risk in the near future. Tehran has the option of increasing enrichment to weapons-grade levels at the site or sending the uranium to an undeclared location," Ms Davenport said.
Israel's prime minister also said the operation would continue for "as many days as it takes to eliminate this threat".
But that is an unrealistic goal, according to Ms Davenport.
"Attacks can destroy facilities and target scientists but cannot wipe out Iran's nuclear knowledge. Iran can rebuild, and now more quickly than before because of its advances in uranium enrichment," he said.
