Israel’s military has deliberately refrained from striking Iran’s Fordo nuclear facility in its latest campaign of airstrikes, amid reported concerns that an attack could trigger a dangerous radiological incident.
The decision, according to Western analysts and Israeli sources, appears to reflect fears that bombing the underground site — believed to house near-weapons-grade uranium — could release radioactive material into the environment, effectively creating a “dirty bomb.”
The Fordo facility, buried deep inside a mountain within a Revolutionary Guard base, is one of Iran’s most secure nuclear installations. Iran claimed Saturday that Fordo had sustained “limited damage” in recent Israeli attacks, but Israel denied involvement. “We are not aware that the Fordo facility was struck, not by us and not by others,” an Israeli military source said. “It may be Iranian psychological warfare.”
The restraint stands in contrast to Israel’s broad strikes elsewhere in Operation Rising Lion, including heavy damage at the Natanz enrichment center and a facility in Isfahan where enriched uranium is converted to metal — a critical step in weaponization. The IDF also confirmed the targeted killing of nine senior Iranian nuclear and military officials, including former atomic energy chief Fereydoon Abbasi and physicist Mohammad Mahdi Tehranchi.
Despite these blows, Israel has not yet targeted Iran’s most sensitive stockpile of enriched uranium, housed in a massive complex outside Isfahan. According to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Iran now possesses enough uranium enriched to near weapons-grade levels to build at least nine nuclear bombs — possibly ten. Netanyahu warned that Tehran has recently taken unprecedented steps toward weaponizing that material and could produce a nuclear weapon “within months or even weeks” if left unchecked.
But analysts believe a direct strike on storage facilities at Fordo or Isfahan could cause radioactive contamination. “The fact that Israel didn’t bomb the known facility suggests concern that such a strike could cause a radiological event,” said Jon Wolfsthal of the Federation of American Scientists. “Or they believe this operation might persuade Iran to give up its stockpile voluntarily.”
Rafael Grossi, director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, told The New York Times that inspectors had recently verified the uranium stockpile near Isfahan in preparation for the agency’s quarterly nuclear report.
Israel’s caution mirrors previous operations. In 1981, it struck Iraq’s Osirak reactor before nuclear fuel had been inserted. It followed the same approach in 2007 with Syria’s suspected reactor, avoiding environmental contamination.
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President Donald Trump, who returned to office in January, praised the Israeli operation on Friday and warned that “there’s much more to come — and it will be brutal.”
As the operation continues, the most fortified and dangerous elements of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure remain untouched — at least for now. But the decision to hold back may signal both strategic patience and a calculated risk to avoid a broader environmental or geopolitical fallout.