An Israeli member of the Knesset is refuting claims made by President Donald Trump that one of Iran’s foremost nuclear weapons sites has been “obliterated” following strikes by B-2 bombers using bunker buster munitions earlier this week.
During the NATO summit on Wednesday morning, Trump asserted that intelligence agents had inspected the Fordow facility and declared its destruction. But MK Aryeh Deri rejected Trump’s claim that Israeli operatives had visited Iranian nuclear sites to assess the aftermath of the strikes.
“No one knows—because no one has visited there yet,” the ultra-Orthodox lawmaker told Haredi news site Kikar Hashabbat. “According to all the statistics, assessments, and satellite imagery, damage has been caused there.”
Meanwhile, responding to reports on the American intelligence assessments, National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi told Ynet something different.
“The Iranian program to produce nuclear weapons has suffered a dramatic blow and will take many years to restore it,” Hanegbi said. “The largest uranium enrichment facility in Natanz has been completely destroyed.
“The reprocessing facility for metallic uranium in Isfahan has been completely destroyed. The nuclear facility in Arak, which was intended to enable a plutogenic pathway for weapons, has been destroyed. Regarding the extent of the damage caused by the American bombing of the underground uranium enrichment facility in Fordow, the estimates are that it will not be possible to restore it to normal operation over time,” he added.
Trump and other senior administration officials have pushed back over the past 24 hours against reports claiming that the U.S. strikes on three Iranian nuclear sites failed to destroy critical components of the nuclear program, instead only delaying it by a few months.
“It was very severe. There was obliteration,” Trump told reporters in The Hague Wednesday, where the NATO summit is being held.
He also said that the nuclear facilities were totally destroyed, and that the U.S. “set back the Iranian nuclear program decades.” The president also said that “they’re not going to have a bomb and they’re not going to enrich,” speaking of the Iranians.
He asserted that Israeli agents had inspected the Fordow facility and were reporting complete destruction, adding that Israel would soon release an official assessment. “They have guys that go in there after the hit , they said it was total obliteration,” Trump said.
“The intelligence says we don’t know. It could’ve been very severe. That’s what the intelligence suggests,” he added, likely citing a Defense Intelligence Agency assessment containing “low confidence” information immediately following the strikes that was leaked.
“The bombs landed where they were supposed to land, there was devastation,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Wednesday.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who has been doubling as Trump’s national security adviser, also pushed back on claims that the strikes were largely ineffective.
“The bottom line is, they are much further away from a nuclear weapon today than they were before the president took this bold action,” Rubio said. “That’s the most important thing to understand — significant, very significant, substantial damage was done to a variety of different components, and we’re just learning more about it.”
U.S. Special Envoy for the Middle East Steve Witkoff called for an investigation to identify the source of the intelligence assessment leak to the American media.
“It goes without saying that leaking that type of information, whatever the information, whatever side it comes out on, is outrageous. It’s treasonous,” he told Fox News. “It ought to be investigated, and whoever is responsible should be held accountable.”
Hegseth announced on Wednesday that the FBI was investigating the leak of the DIA assessment. “Of course, we’re doing a leak investigation with the FBI right now because this information is for internal purposes. Battle damage assessments,” Hegseth said.