Iran has temporarily shut down its nuclear facilities in fear of a counter-attack after a massive missile and drone attack on Israel. Rafael Grossi, head of the United Nations Atomic Energy Organization, gave this information on Monday.
Speaking to reporters after a UN Security Council meeting, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Grossi was asked whether he was concerned about the threat of an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities in retaliation.
He said, ‘We are always worried about this fear. Iran’s government told our inspectors that all nuclear facilities were shut down last Sunday for security reasons. We have monitored all the installations on a daily basis.
According to a report by the news agency AFP, the facilities were supposed to reopen on Monday. However, the inspectors will not return until Tuesday, he said.
“I have decided not to allow the inspectors to return until the situation is completely calm,” he said, calling for “extreme restraint”.
Iran has fired more than three hundred drones and missiles at Israel from last Saturday night to Sunday. The attack was in response to the Israeli airstrike on the Iranian consular building in Damascus that killed seven Revolutionary Guards.
However, there were no casualties in the Iranian attack. Most Iranian missiles are intercepted by Israel and its allies. But fears of possible Israeli retaliation have fueled fears of an all-out regional war.
Earlier, Israel has carried out nuclear installations in the region. In 1981, despite opposition from Washington, Israel bombed the Osirak nuclear reactor in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. In 2018, the country admitted to carrying out a top secret airstrike on a Syrian nuclear reactor 11 years ago.
In addition, Tehran accused Israel of killing two Iranian nuclear physicists in 2010 and kidnapping another the previous year. In 2010, Iran blamed Israel and the United States for a sophisticated cyber attack using the Stuxnet virus. The attack caused a series of disasters in Iranian centrifuges used for uranium enrichment.
Israel alleges that Iran wants to build a nuclear bomb. However, Tehran has been denying this claim.