Natanz Fuel Enrichment Plant

Natanz is Iran's primary uranium enrichment complex in Isfahan Province, comprising a surface Fuel Enrichment Plant, a Pilot Fuel Enrichment Plant, and underground cascade halls buried under 8 metres of reinforced concrete and 22 metres of earth. Israeli strikes destroyed the surface facilities during Operation Rising Lion on 13 June 2025, and two GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrators struck the underground halls during Operation Midnight Hammer nine days later, damage the Institute for Science and International Security assessed as likely reaching the enrichment hall itself. On 13 April 2026, foreign minister Araghchi told reporters that no Iranian site retains any enrichment capacity: a claim Natanz's own ruins bear out most directly, since the underground halls once housed the bulk of that capacity.

The plant has been rebuilt before: Israeli sabotage in 2020 and 2021 destroyed earlier centrifuge lines, and Iran responded by building the underground halls now in ruins. Before the June 2025 strikes those halls housed roughly 5,000 centrifuges enriching uranium to 60% purity, and Iran's last verified stockpile stood at 440.9 kg of that material.

As of 26 June 2026, IAEA inspectors had not entered Natanz in more than 100 days, and only satellite imagery placed the roughly 460 kg of high-purity uranium once stored there.