Israel is reportedly bracing for a possible Iranian retaliation as officials in Tehran suggested on Friday that a mystery fire and explosion at a top-secret nuclear complex could have been caused by an Israeli cyberattack.
An Israeli TV report Friday night said the attack “destroyed” a laboratory where Iran was developing advanced centrifuges for faster uranium enrichment, and a Kuwaiti report quoted an unnamed source assessing that the strike set back the Iranian nuclear program by two months.
Three Iranian officials told the Reuters news agency they believed the incident at the Natanz enrichment facility early Thursday was the result of a cyberattack, and two of them said Israel could have been behind it, but offered no evidence.
Asked about reports of the incident at a press conference Thursday evening, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu brushed aside the question: “I don’t address these issues,” he said.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivers a press statement from his office in Jerusalem, July 2, 2020. (Screen capture: YouTube)
But Amos Yadlin, the head of the Institute for National Security Studies, and a former head of IDF military intelligence, tweeted Friday that, “According to foreign sources, it appears that the prime minister focused this week on Iran rather than [his plan for West Bank] annexation. This is the policy I’ve been recommending in the last few weeks.” READ MORE
