Israel Hit Iran's Nuclear Program in October: Axios Confirms Earlier Report

Axios reported Friday that Israel did, in fact, hit Iranian nuclear facilities in its response last month to Iran’s ballistic missile attack, confirming reporting by Breitbart News based on a theory first floated by Israeli columnist Caroline Glick.

As Breitbart News reported in October:

[Glick] noted that Israel hit Parchin, a secret Iranian military base that has long been a suspected site for Iran’s nuclear program.

Media reports suggest that the target at Parchin was “a building that was part of Iran’s defunct nuclear weapons development program, and … facilities used to mix solid fuel for missiles.” But the program is likely not “defunct,” and Parchin was also allegedly an “undeclared” nuclear site, meaning that the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] was not monitoring it closely.

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Just as it defied the U.S. in targeting Hezbollah’s leadership in Lebanon, and in killing Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar in Gaza, Glick suggests, Israel may have gone beyond the restrictions imposed by the Biden-Harris administration and used its retaliatory strike against Iran to accomplish broader strategic goals.

Axios.com’s Barak Ravid reported a “scoop” on Friday:

The Israeli attack on Iran in late October destroyed an active top secret nuclear weapons research facility in Parchin, according to three U.S. officials, one current Israeli official and one former Israeli official.

Why it matters: The strike — which targeted a site previously reported to be inactive — significantly damaged Iran’s effort over the past year to resume nuclear weapons research, Israeli and U.S. officials said.

One former Israeli official briefed on the strike said it destroyed sophisticated equipment used to design the plastic explosives that surround uranium in a nuclear device and are needed to detonate it.

President-elect Trump said earlier in October that Israel should destroy Iran’s nuclear program in response to Iran’s ballistic missile attack, the single largest such attack in human history. Roughly 85% of the missiles were intercepted.

Trump has since said that he wants to reach an agreement with Iran to avoid further war — which may be feasible, especially if Iran’s nuclear program has been damaged, along with its air defenses and its ballistic missile program.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days, available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.