The Israeli Defense Forces warned Iranians within the area of Iran’s Arak heavy water reactor to evacuate on Wednesday.
The Farsi-language warning included a red circle around the reactor that indicated it would be targeted for a military strike. The reactor is 155 miles southwest of Tehran.
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It noted that any presence within the area will endanger citizens’ lives and that the move is a part of Israel’s assault on Iran’s military infrastructure.
#BREAKING Israeli army issues evacuation order for Arak and Khandab. This is the area that contains Iran’s heavy water reactor. Israel bombing this area would release radioactive materials causing widespread contamination and pose serious health risks ☢️ pic.twitter.com/ZbswrZqrjZ
— Samira Mohyeddin سمیرا (@SMohyeddin) June 19, 2025
Iran had agreed under its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers to redesign the facility to relieve proliferation concerns. Heavy water cools nuclear reactors but creates as a byproduct plutonium, which can be used in a nuclear weapon and could have given Iran a different path to a nuclear bomb instead of enriched uranium.
In 2019, the country started up the heavy water reactor’s secondary circuit, which at the time did not violate the 2015 nuclear deal. President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal meant the United Kingdom had to step in for America in helping Iran redesign the Arak reactor to limit the amount of plutonium it produces.
The International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations’s nuclear watchdog, urged Israel in the past not to strike Iranian nuclear sites. But the IAEA has said it lost “continuity of knowledge” about Iran’s heavy water production due to Iranian restrictions on its inspections.
Israel and Iran’s recent conflict has been prompted by a lack of success in disarming Iran’s nuclear program. Israel said it believed Iran would have nuclear weapons soon, and struck top generals, nuclear scientists, and nuclear sites to sink the country’s nuclear effort.
Trump has adamantly said he doesn’t want Iran to have a nuclear weapon and is reportedly considering involving the United States in the conflict to strike Iranian nuclear sites.
TRUMP DEMANDS IRAN’S ‘UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER.’ AND NOW WE WAIT.
“Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. It’s very simple — you don’t have to go too deep into it. They just can’t have a nuclear weapon,” he said on Tuesday.
The intelligence community has denied that Iran’s nuclear program has changed since March, when Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard told lawmakers that Tehran has large amounts of enriched uranium but has not made a decision to rush toward building a bomb.