Thursday, June 26, 2025 - Israel has confirmed the targeted killing of at least 14 scientists involved in Iran’s nuclear program—an extraordinary blow to Tehran’s nuclear ambitions that experts say may significantly delay, but not eliminate, its progress.
In an interview with the Associated Press, Israeli Ambassador
to France Joshua Zarka said the deaths make it “almost impossible” for Iran to
continue building nuclear weapons, especially following nearly two weeks of
Israeli airstrikes and U.S. bunker-busting bombs.
“The fact that the whole group
disappeared is basically throwing back the program by quite a number of years,”
Zarka stated.
However, nuclear experts argue that while the strikes deal a
blow, Iran’s scientific infrastructure remains resilient. Western governments
stress that military action alone cannot dismantle Iran’s accumulated nuclear
knowledge.
“Strikes cannot destroy the
knowledge Iran has acquired over several decades, nor any regime ambition to
deploy that knowledge to build a nuclear weapon,” said UK Foreign Secretary
David Lammy during remarks to Parliament.
According to Zarka, the strikes eliminated 14 senior
scientists—including physicists, chemists, and engineers—who were directly
involved in weapon design and production. Israel’s military said nine of the
scientists were killed during the initial wave of airstrikes on June 13 and had
“decades of accumulated experience” in nuclear weapons development.
Iranian state television later reported the death of another
key figure, Mohammad Reza Sedighi Saber, who was killed in a second Israeli
strike after surviving a previous attack that claimed the life of his
17-year-old son.
The killings appear to be intended not only to halt nuclear
work but also to deter others from participating in future efforts.
“Blueprints will be around, and the
next generation of Ph.D. students will figure it out,” said Mark Fitzpatrick,
former U.S. diplomat and nuclear expert. “Killing scientists and bombing
facilities will set the program back further—but it can and will be
reconstituted.”
Pavel Podvig, a Geneva-based nuclear analyst, said the key to
any nuclear program is access to enriched material. "Once you have the
material, the rest is reasonably well-known,” he said, suggesting the killings
are meant to instill fear.
“But then the question becomes: where do you stop? Do you start targeting students who study physics?” Podvig warned. “It’s a very slippery slope.”
Ambassador Zarka agreed the attacks could serve as a powerful deterrent. “I do think that people asked to join a future nuclear weapons program in Iran will think twice.
Israel has long been suspected of covertly targeting Iranian
nuclear scientists, though this marks one of the few times it has claimed
responsibility. In 2020, Iran blamed Israel for the assassination of top
nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, who was killed by a remote-controlled
machine gun
“Those setbacks have collectively
delayed Iran’s nuclear program,” Zarka said. “Every one of these incidents
pushed the program back a little further.”
Still, not all analysts believe these tactics are effective
long-term.
“It’s more symbolic than strategic,”
said Lova Rinel, an analyst with the Foundation for Strategic Research in
Paris. “It delays the program, but it doesn’t end it.”
International humanitarian law prohibits the deliberate
killing of civilians and non-combatants. However, legal scholars note that such
protections may not apply to individuals directly participating in military or
nuclear weapons programs.
Whether these targeted assassinations fall within
international legal boundaries remains a topic of ongoing debate, but for now,
the strikes have escalated tensions and introduced a new dimension to the
Israel-Iran conflict.
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