IAEA Director-General Rafael Grossi on Wednesday contradicted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s claim that Israel struck a nuclear site in Iran as part of its 20 attacks on the country on October 26.
Netanyahu said one of the sites attacked was connected to Iran’s nuclear program, with leaks that he was referring to the site at Parchin, where the Islamic Republic had a nuclear site in the early 2000s, which it eventually moved and covered up.
Grossi said that Parchin has had no nuclear activity in a long time while acknowledging that it may have in the distant past.
Supporting Grossi’s claim against Netanyahu, multiple briefings by Israeli defense officials regarding the October 26 attack never mentioned anything about a strike on a nuclear facility, instead always explaining why Israel had avoided such targets.
More specifically, Grossi responded to the question about Netanyahu’s claim, “if you’re referring to the area of Parchin. We do not consider this a nuclear facility. We don’t have any information that would confirm the presence of nuclear material there… it could have been involved in the past in some activities perhaps, but not even that building,” which Israel struck.
Non-recognition
“I leave it to those military decision-makers to judge and characterize places, but as far as the IAEA is concerned, we don’t see it as a nuclear facility.”
The IDF struck Iran on October 26 after Tehran massively attacked the Jewish state on October 1 with over 180 ballistic missiles.
