Israel-Iran war: IAEA confirms critical damage to Iran’s nuclear sites — Here's list of 8 past attacks on nuclear bases

With the tensions between Iran and Israel escalating in past couple of days, Israeli airstrikes dealt critical damage to a key Iranian nuclear facility and may have set back the Islamic Republic’s uranium fuel cycle by months, Bloomberg reported International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as saying.

According to the IAEA, multiple Israeli strikes against Iran’s uranium-conversion facility at Isfahan, which is 400 km south of Tehran. The attack resulted in serious damage in Isfahan.

The IAEA noted that the attacks on Isfahan would have significant impact, citing it is the only location for converting uranium into the feedstock used by centrifuges that separate the uranium isotopes needed for nuclear power or bombs.

Without converting the new volumes of raw uranium, Iran’s ability to produce additional quantities of enriched product would be frozen, the IAEA said. Despite Iran having ample stockpiles of existing material, the Gulf country's ability to scale up uranium-based nuclear missiles would be limited.

“If you interrupt that piece of the flow-sheet, the fuel cycle doesn’t work anymore,” Bloomberg quoted Robert Kelley, a US nuclear engineer who led inspections for the IAEA in Iraq and Libya, as saying. “The front end of their program dies.”

However, it is not the first time that Iran’s nuclear bases have been attacked.

Here's timeline of previous incidents when Iran's nuclear bases were attacked, compiled by the Washington Post:

2007 – Suspicious death of nuclear scientist Ardeshir Hosseinpour.

2010 — The Stuxnet computer virus, widely believed to be a joint U.S.-Israeli creation, disrupted and destroyed Iranian centrifuges.

2020 — After the disintegration of the 2015 nuclear deal, Israeli forces allegedly attacked against Iran’s nuclear program to keep Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

November 2020 — Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, a top Iranian military nuclear scientist, was killed by a remote-controlled machine gun while traveling in a car outside Tehran. That time too, Iran accused Israel.

April 11, 2021 — An attack targeted Iran’s underground nuclear facility in Natanz. Iran blamed Israel.

February 14, 2024 — An Israeli sabotage attack caused multiple explosions on an Iranian natural gas pipeline, which runs from Iran’s western Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari province to cities on the Caspian Sea.

June 13, 2025 — Israel launched blistering attacks on the heart of Iran’s nuclear and military structure. It deployed warplanes and drones.

June 14, 2025 — Israel expanded its airstrikes to include targets in Iran’s energy industry as Iranian missile and drone attacks continue on Israel.

Other targets on Iran's nuclear program:

1967 — Iran takes possession of its Tehran Research Reactor under America’s “Atoms for Peace” program.

August 2002 — an Iranian opposition group and western intelligence services revealed Iran’s secret Natanz nuclear enrichment facility.

June 2003 — Britain, France and Germany engaged Iran in nuclear negotiations.

October 2003 — Iran suspended uranium enrichment.

February 2006 — Following the election of hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran announced it would restart uranium enrichment. Soon after this, Britain, France and Germany walk out of stalled negotiations.

June 2009 — Despite fraud allegations, sparking Green Movement protests and violent government crackdown, Iran’s disputed presidential election saw Ahmadinejad reelected

October 2009 — Under President Barack Obama, the U.S. and Iran opened a secret backchannel for messages in the sultanate of Oman.

July 14, 2015 — In exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions, Iran, along with other nations announced a long-term, comprehensive nuclear agreement that limits Tehran’s enrichment of uranium.

2018 — Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu stated that Israel obtained tens of thousands of pages of data which showed Iran covered up its nuclear program before signing a deal in 2015.

July 2020 — Iran accused Israel for a mysterious explosion which teared apart a centrifuge production plant at Iran’s Natanz nuclear enrichment facility.

April 16, 2021 — Iran began enriching uranium up to 60%, which is its highest purity ever and a technical step from weapons-grade levels of 90%.

June 2022 — Iran accused Israel of poisoning two nuclear scientists in different cities within three days of each other, though circumstances remain unclear.

October 7, 2023 — Iran offered support to the Hamas militants after Hamas militants from the Gaza Strip storm into Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking 250 hostage.

April 1, 2024 — An Israeli airstrike demolished Iran’s Consulate in Syria's Damascus, killing 16 people, including two Iranian generals.

April 14, 2024 — Iran launched an unprecedented missile and drone attack on Israel, firing over 300 missiles and attack drones in response to the Israeli airstrike in Damascus.

Oct. 26, 2024 — Israel openly attacked Iran for the first time, striking air defense systems and sites associated with its missile program.

June 15, 2025 — Israel unleashes airstrikes across Iran for a third day following some Iranian missiles evade Israeli air defenses to strike buildings in the heart of Israel.

With agency inputs.