As attacks between the US and Israel continue, the watchdog says “no radiological consequences are expected” after entrances to the underground nuclear site were damaged.
Published March 3, 2026
The United Nations nuclear watchdog has said Iran’s Natanz nuclear enrichment facility has suffered “some recent damage” as US and Israeli attacks on the country continue for a fourth day.
In a brief statement on Tuesday, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said damage had been confirmed to the entrance buildings to the underground fuel enrichment plant (FEP).
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“No radiological consequences are expected nor have any additional impacts been detected on the FEP itself,” the agency said, adding that the facility suffered “severe damage” during the 12-day war that Israel and the United States waged against Iran last year.
Located on the outskirts of the city of Qom, the FEP is one of three Iranian uranium enrichment plants known to have been operational when Israel and the United States carried out attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities in June 2025.
The country’s nuclear infrastructure was expected to be among the targets of the renewed military offensive launched by the United States and Israel against Iran on Saturday, killing at least 787 people across the country, according to the Iranian Red Crescent Society.
The bombing campaign has sparked retaliatory attacks by Iranian forces across the Middle East, killing several people in several countries, including at least six American service members and 11 people in Israel.
On Monday, IAEA chief Rafael Grossi said the agency was following the conflict “with concern.”
The agency’s Incident and Emergency Center (IEC) is “gathering information and assessing the situation,” Grossi said, adding that “so far, no elevation of radiation levels above usual background levels has been detected in countries bordering Iran.”
He also said the IAEA had “no indication that any of the nuclear facilities, including the Bushehr nuclear power plant, the Tehran research reactor or other nuclear fuel cycle facilities, had been damaged or hit.”
This was refuted by Reza Najafi, Iran’s envoy to the IAEA, who said Natanz was attacked on Sunday.
“Yesterday they attacked Iran’s safeguarded peaceful nuclear facilities again. Their justification that Iran wants to develop nuclear weapons is simply a big lie,” Najafi told reporters at the IAEA headquarters in Vienna, Austria’s capital.
The Institute for Science and International Security, a US-based think tank, said on Monday that satellite images showed two attacks on access points to the underground uranium enrichment plant at Natanz.
David Albright, a former U.N. nuclear inspector and founder of the institute, said the attacks appeared to have occurred sometime between Sunday afternoon and Monday morning local time, based on satellite images his group reviewed.
He could not identify whether the United States or Israel attacked the Natanz complex.
