Israel says strikes dealt 'systemic' damage to Iran nuclear program

Intercepted communications suggest that Iranian military leaders have been misrepresenting the scale of destruction to the country’s political leadership, Axios reported Wednesday citing Israeli officials, who described damage to the nuclear sites as very significant.

"The Iranians themselves still do not have a clear understanding of what has happened to some of their nuclear facilities,” one of the sources said.

The above-ground enrichment facilities in Natanz have been completely destroyed, Axios cited another Israeli official as saying, and there are indications that the underground infrastructure at this site has also collapsed.

Central Intelligence Agency Director John Ratcliffe said on Wednesday that solid new evidence indicated the Iranian nuclear program was set back by years by US attacks, without specifying the evidence.

"This includes new intelligence from a historically reliable and accurate source/method that several key Iranian nuclear facilities were destroyed and would have to be rebuilt over the course of years," Ratcliffe said in a statement.

"We have never trusted and never will trust this barbaric foe," the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps chief commander said, referring to Israel.

"All our fighters are ready to shoot, and if the adversary makes any mistake, we will reciprocate to the same extent we have in the last 12 days," Mohammad Pakpour said on Wednesday.

"We never doubt for even a second our duty to defend this country."

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Wednesday the Iranian people may overthrow their rulers if they don't reform but insisted there is no US plan to bring about regime change.

"What the President said is, if the regime in Iran does not wants to keep spending money on terrorism, keep spending money on trying to get nuclear weapons, keep spending money on rockets to attack Israel and not develop their economy or help their people, maybe there will be regime change, because the people of Iran are going to get sick of it," Rubio said.

“The world is filled with regimes I don’t like and the president doesn’t like, and many of us wish didn’t exist. The United States’ job is not to go around and set up governments for every country,” Rubio told Politico in an interview at the Hague.

“Our national security issue with Iran is with a clerical regime that wants nuclear weapons so they can threaten us and Israel today and threaten us tomorrow."

"And the president has made clear that’s not going to happen,” he added.

The UN Special Rapporteur for the situation of human rights in Iran has accused the Islamic Republic of carrying out arbitrary arrests, executions, and secretive prisoner transfers since Israeli attacks, warning that due process is being violated.

“I am also concerned about reports of arbitrary arrests and executions of activists, journalists, social media users, and Afghan nationals, and the holding of hasty and improper trials that violate the principles of fair trial since the beginning of the Israeli attacks,” Mai Sato said on Wednesday in a post on X.

These issues were raised in a joint statement with the UN Fact-Finding Mission, according to Sato.