Nuclear Escalation: Israel’s air strike on Iran, hit province with nuclear sites; will Tehran retaliate?

Israel has carried out a retaliatory attack on Iran as it reportedly conducted air strikes in the centre of the country late on Thursday.

Explosions was heard in the central city of Isfahan, a province that has one of Iran’s most crucial nuclear sites. But will Iran take a revenge after this? It appears so.

Several Iranian nuclear sites are located in Isfahan, including Natanz, the crown jewel of Iran’s uranium enrichment program.

Unconfirmed posts on social media claimed that at least seven Iranian cities were hit by the air strikes carried by Israel.

Moments before the air strikes, the chief of Iran’s Nuclear Protection and Security Corps, General Ahmad Haqtalab, warned that “If the Zionist regime decides to take action against our nuclear facilities and centres, it will definitely face our reaction.”

More from World

This Week in Explainers: How recovering from Gen-Z protests is a Himalayan task for Nepal Zohran Mamdani says he would arrest Netanyahu if he is elected as NYC mayor, calls Israeli PM 'war criminal'

General Haqtalab, in his statement on earlier Thursday, assured the citizens of Iran that the country’s nuclear facilities are secure.

‘Hands are on the trigger’

“If the fake Zionist regime decides to use the threat of attacking our country’s nuclear centres as a tool to put pressure on Iran, it is possible and conceivable to revise the nuclear doctrine and policies of the Islamic Republic of Iran and digress from the previously declared considerations,” a report by Press TV quoted the IRGC official as saying.

“The nuclear centres of the Zionist enemy have been identified and the necessary information about all the targets is at our disposal. In order to respond to their possible actions, the hands are on the trigger, so to speak, for firing powerful missiles to destroy the identified targets,” General Haqtalab further said.

Impact Shorts

More Shorts

‘The cries of this widow will echo’: In first public remarks, Erika Kirk warns Charlie’s killers they’ve ‘unleashed a fire’

Trump urges Nato to back sanctions on Russia, calls for 50–100% tariffs on China

Ready to deal with any threat from Israel

The General further said: “Thanks to … our highly advanced facilities and equipment, as well as the dispersion of our country’s nuclear facilities and complexes in the vast land of Iran, we are ready to deal with any threat from the Zionist regime.”

Netanyahu ‘a man of words’

From the air strikes on Iran on Thursday, it appears that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is a “man of words” as he had earlier vowed to “retaliate” against Iran’s weekend attack, which involved hundreds of drones and missiles in retaliation for a suspected Israeli strike on its embassy compound in Syria.

With inputs from agencies