Israeli intelligence has reportedly assessed that Iran has moved thousands of nuclear centrifuges into a site in the Natanz area known as Pickaxe Mountain, burying them deep underground and making them harder to target in aerial strikes.

The Wall Street Journal, citing US and Israeli officials, reported Monday that Israel has told the US that its intelligence shows Tehran made the move last fall, following the 12-day war in June 2025, during which the US and Israel bombed Iran’s nuclear facilities, including some buried underground.

The Pickaxe site was not targeted at the time, nor has it been hit since the start of a more intensive US-Israeli air campaign against Iran on February 28, which was launched in a bid to destabilize the regime and destroy its nuclear and ballistic missile capacities. There has been activity at the site, including movement of trucks and construction, for some 15  months.

It is not clear where the centrifuges that Israel warned about had come from, the report said, noting they may have been brought from other Iranian nuclear sites.

Iran has not allowed the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency to access the site and has not given any specific details about its operations. IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi said in March that back in 2021, Iran said it intended “to have nuclear activity” at Pickaxe, the report said.

Officials were said to be worried that Pickaxe could be used for a small enrichment program to produce fissile material.

According to the........

© The Times of Israel