Israeli Ambassador to India says Iran was rebuilding nuclear capabilities, Israel had to act

Israeli Ambassador to India Reuven Azar said Israel, along with the US, launched the strikes because Iran was rebuilding its nuclear programme and moving key infrastructure underground.On being asked about US President Donald Trump’s claim that Iran’s nuclear facilities were obliterated during last year’s 12-day conflict, Ambassador Azar told CNBC-TV18 that, “Israel had intelligence that Iran resumed its efforts afterwards. We had intelligence that Iranians in the last few months were engaged in trying to build nuclear infrastructure much deeper underground and continue with its nuclear activities and ballistic missile production.”

Azar said the earlier conflict caused significant damage to Iran’s nuclear programme, but Tehran did not change course.
“Last year’s 12-day war was a limited action. It indeed caused a great deal of damage to the Iranian nuclear programme but instead of changing course, Iran decided to come up with a formula which will allow them to threaten us in the future,” he said.He added that Israel acted to protect itself.

“War is something we didn’t want to do. We did it to protect our existence,” Azar said.

His remarks come as joint US–Israeli strikes on Iran entered their sixth day, with no clear timeline yet for the conflict to end. Israeli President Isaac Herzog earlier said Israel and the United States did not have “much of a choice” but to launch strikes on Iran, citing concerns over Tehran’s alleged nuclear ambitions and expanding missile capabilities.

Meanwhile, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said it has detected no damage to facilities containing nuclear material in Iran and sees no risk of a radiological release based on its latest assessment using satellite imagery.

The UN nuclear watchdog said there had been no additional impact detected at the Natanz nuclear facility and confirmed there was no damage at the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant, Iran’s only operational nuclear power plant. However, the agency noted visible damage near the Isfahan nuclear site, where two buildings appear to have been affected.