Israel has been targeting Iran from the air since last Friday in what it has described as an effort to prevent Tehran from developing nuclear weapons.

According to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), five nuclear facilities have been struck, sparking fears the air strikes could raise health risks across the region.

Here’s what damage has been caused so far, and what the safety risks are of attacking nuclear sites.

US bombs Iran live updates: Trump says three nuclear sites ‘successfully’ attacked

What has Israel been targeting?

Several military and nuclear sites in Iran.

Israel says the attacks are to block Iran from developing atomic weapons.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the operations were to “strike the head of Iran’s nuclear weaponization program”.

Iran denies ever having pursued a plan to build nuclear weapons and is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

It says the nuclear sites it does have are for peaceful purposes.

If Israel continues attacking Iran in an effort to eliminate the country’s nuclear capability, destroying the Fordow enrichment plant will be central to its plan.

While another important facility, Natanz, has been hit, the Fordow site would be much harder to target.

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That’s because it’s located inside a mountain, 90 metres underground, and can only be reached by American “bunker-buster” bombs, which Israel does not possess.

Why are they being targeted?

Israel believes Iran is enriching uranium to levels that could allow it to build a nuclear weapon, despite the Islamic Republic’s claims its nuclear work is for “peaceful purposes”.

Enriched uranium, specifically uranium-235, is an essential component in many nuclear weapons.

“When you dig uranium out of the ground, 99.3 per cent of it is uranium-238, and 0.7 per cent of it is uranium-235,” Kaitlin Cook, a nuclear physicist at the Australian National University, said.

“The numbers 238 and 235 relate to its weight — uranium-235 is slightly lighter than uranium-238.”

Before and after Israel’s attacks on Iran’s facilities Photo shows thumbnail satellite 1 Missile strikes and fires have torn through Iran’s nuclear and military facilities. These satellite images show the damage that has been inflicted by Israel’s attacks.

To enrich uranium means increasing the proportion of uranium-235 while removing the uranium-238.

This is typically done with a centrifuge, a kind of “scientific salad spinner” that rotates uranium thousands of times a minute, separating the lighter uranium-235 from the base uranium.

For civilian nuclear power, Dr Cook says uranium-235 is usually enriched to about 3 to 5 per cent.

But once uranium is enriched to 90 per cent, it is deemed weapons-grade.

According to the IAEA, Iran’s uranium has reached about 60 per cent enrichment, well on its way to being concentrated enough for a nuclear weapon.

Dr Cook says the process for enriching uranium from 60 per cent to weapons-grade is significantly easier than enriching it to 60 per cent in the first place. That’s because there’s less uranium-238 to get rid of.

According to the US Institute for Science and International Security, “Iran can convert its current stock of 60 per cent enriched uranium into 233kg of weapon-grade uranium in three weeks at the Fordow plant”, which it said would be enough for nine nuclear weapons.

In the hours after Israel attacked Iran last Friday, Netanyahu said Iran was just days away from being able to build nuclear weapons.

In a White House briefing, press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Iran has all it needs to achieve a nuclear weapon.

“It would take a couple of weeks to complete the production of that weapon, which would, of course, pose an existential threat not just to Israel, but to the United States and to the entire world.”

Netanyahu uses a red marker on a diagram of a bomb as he describes his concerns over Iran’s nuclear ambitions in 2012. (AP: Seth Wenig)

But there has been some back and forth between US authorities on whether Iran was really that close to producing nuclear weapons.

In March, US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard told members of Congress that Iran was not moving towards building nuclear weapons.

“The IC [intelligence community] continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme Leader Khamenei has not authorized the nuclear weapons programme he suspended in 2003,” she said.

On Air Force One on Monday night, after hastily leaving the G7 summit, President Donald Trump offered a direct contradiction to Ms Gabbard’s claims.

“I don’t care what she said,” Mr Trump said.

“I think they were very close to having it.”

What has Israel hit so far?

The IAEA said Israel had directly hit the underground enrichment halls at the Natanz facility, leaving them “severely damaged, if not destroyed altogether”.

According to the IAEA, the Natanz site was one of the facilities at which Iran was producing uranium enriched up to 60 per cent U-235.

After the attack, the IAEA found radioactive contamination at the site, but it said the levels of radioactivity outside remained unchanged and at normal levels.

Israel Defense Forces spokesperson Effie Defrin said: “We’ve struck deep, hitting Iran’s nuclear, ballistic and command capabilities.”

A nuclear complex at Isfahan and centrifuge production facilities in Karaj and Tehran were also damaged.

Israel said on Wednesday it had targeted Arak, also known as Khondab, the location of a partially built heavy-water research reactor.

The IAEA said it had information that the heavy-water reactor had been hit, but that it was not operating and reported no radiological effects.

What are the risks of striking a nuclear site?

Experts say attacks on enrichment facilities are mainly a “chemical problem”, not radiological.

Darya Dolzikova, a senior research fellow at London think tank RUSI, says the main concern from destroying an enrichment plant is releasing the harmful uranium hexafluoride gas — highly corrosive and toxic — that’s contained in centrifuges.

“When UF6 interacts with water vapour in the air, it produces harmful chemicals,” Ms Dolzikova said.

The extent to which any material is dispersed would depend on factors including weather conditions, she added.

“In low winds, much of the material can be expected to settle in the vicinity of the facility; in high winds, the material will travel farther, but is also likely to disperse more widely.”

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei visits the Iranian centrifuges in Tehran in 2023. (WANA via Reuters)

Peter Bryant, a professor at the University of Liverpool who specialises in radiation protection science and nuclear energy policy, says nuclear facilities are designed to prevent the release of radioactive materials into the environment.

“Uranium is only dangerous if it gets physically inhaled or ingested or gets into the body at low enrichments,” Professor Bryant said.

While there so far have been no major radiological incidents as a result of the attacks, IAEA director-general Rafael Mariano Grossi stressed the possible nuclear safety and security risks.

“There is a lot of nuclear material in Iran in different places, which means that the potential for a radiological accident with the dispersion in the atmosphere of radioactive materials and particles does exist,” he said.

In a post on X, World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus also voiced his concern about the potential “immediate and long-term impacts on the environment and health of people in Iran and across the region”.

What about nuclear reactors?

Well, that’s a different story.

A strike on Iran’s nuclear reactor at Bushehr could cause an “absolute radiological catastrophe”, says James Acton, co-director of the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

While most reactor vessels are protected by steel and concrete containment structures, Dr Cook says the surrounding infrastructure, like spent fuel pools and cooling equipment, would “definitely be a concern” if targeted.

A satellite image shows the Natanz nuclear facility in Iran after an air strike. (Maxar Technologies via Reuters)

For Gulf states, the impact of any strike on Bushehr would be worsened by the potential contamination of Gulf waters, jeopardising a critical source of desalinated potable water.

In the UAE, desalinated water accounts for more than 80 per cent of drinking water.

While Bahrain and Qatar are fully reliant on desalinated water.

“If a natural disaster, oil spill, or even a targeted attack were to disrupt a desalination plant, hundreds of thousands could lose access to freshwater almost instantly,” said Nidal Hilal, professor of engineering and director of New York University Abu Dhabi’s Water Research Center.

“Coastal desalination plants are especially vulnerable to regional hazards like oil spills and potential nuclear contamination,” he said.

On Thursday, an Israeli military spokesperson said the military had struck the Bushehr nuclear site in Iran.

However, an Israeli military official later said that comment “was a mistake”.

The official would only confirm that Israel had hit the Natanz, Isfahan, and Arak nuclear sites in Iran.

The Bushehr nuclear power lant in Iran has not been targeted by Israel at this stage. (Planet Labs via Reuters)

Pressed further on Bushehr, the official said he could neither confirm nor deny that Israel had struck the location.

Bushehr is Iran’s only operating nuclear power plant, which sits on the Gulf coast and uses Russian fuel that Russia then takes back when it is spent to reduce proliferation risk.

What is heavy water?

Heavy water is H20 made up of hydrogen-2 instead of hydrogen-1.

Dr Cook says it’s a little heavier than normal water.

“When you use heavy water, you can run your reactor on non-enriched uranium, avoiding the expense of enriching it in the first place, though the water does cost more.

“But the problem is that heavy-water reactors can also be used to produce plutonium, which can be used in nuclear weapons.”

Iran’s impotent ‘Axis of Resistance’ Photo shows The orange glow of fire highlights dark clouds of smoke rising behind blocks of flats and other multistorey buildings. Iran has built a network of allies around the Middle East. But none of those proxies nor its most powerful backers, China and Russia, have intervened since Israel began bombing Tehran.

Israel’s military said its fighter jets targeted the Arak facility and its reactor core seal to stop it from being used to produce plutonium.

“The strike targeted the component intended for plutonium production, in order to prevent the reactor from being restored and used for nuclear weapons development.”

India and Pakistan, both nuclear-armed states, have heavy-water reactors.

So does Israel, but it has never acknowledged having atomic weapons but is widely believed to have them.

ABC with wires

As the world holds its breath over Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu’s arm wrestle about whether to drop US “bunker busters” on Iran’s nuclear facilities, Australians have every right to feel confused and concerned.

Is this proof we’ve inadvertently yoked ourselves as a nation to the whims of madmen?

Does the US-Australia alliance — normally a source of national comfort — hide fearsome consequences? Will we be drawn into a new conflagration involving nuclear powers? Do we have a choice? Is our sovereignty at risk?

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Or is there a logic to what Israel is doing against Tehran’s nuclear program that serves the interests of Australians, even if we dislike the process? Disarming a dangerous regime accused of spreading terror around the world must surely be a good thing?

Either way, Richard Marles told 7.30 on Tuesday that “we are not a part of this conflict” in the Middle East even as the defence minister doggedly side-stepped questions from my colleague David Speers about the nature of our support for potential American involvement in Iran.

“Can I just clarify, is the US allowed to launch any missions from Australia’s northern bases?” Speers asked.

“Well, again, there’s a whole lot of speculation in all of that.”

Not really. Are they allowed to or not?

“That’s a simple question about what permission the US has regardless of what’s happening right now,” Speers pressed.

“Well, we have a system of full knowledge and concurrence in terms of the way in which any country operates from Australia and that includes the United States,” Marles eventually explained.

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Marles was deliberately obtuse

The minister’s choice of language was deliberate and strategic. And purposefully obtuse.

Having full “knowledge and concurrence” of what American military forces are doing on Australian soil sounds vaguely comforting.

In practice, it’s a long way from what it might imply. Concurrence is not the same as “approval” or “consent” — both of which ascribe the granter an implicit and concrete veto.

Concurrence leaves open the possibility that Americans do what they want from their Australian-based assets, perhaps seeking forgiveness rather than permission.

Such questions and constructive ambiguity emerge every time an American administration signs up to war-fighting.

But this is not a normal American administration and these are not normal times. The notion this generation of Australians can stand as aloof observers of far-off events could soon be tested.

Albanese travelled across the world for a date with Trump, only to be stood up Photo shows Prime Minister Anthony Albanese speaks at the G7 in Canada Seven months in the making, Anthony Albanese told reporters that he had prepared extensively to finally meet with US President Donald Trump. Then a social media post landed with a thud.

It was only on Monday that Marles triggered a frisson among the defence and strategic community when he stated that China’s regional military build-up meant “Australia’s geography today is more relevant to great power contest than it has been at any point since the end of the Second World War, arguably at any point in our history”.

At face value — the notion that Australia now has a great big target on its back — is stating the bleeding obvious.

But hearing it directly from an acting Labor prime minister is a significant escalation in rhetoric.

Marles was emphasising — in essence — that Australia’s unique geography and the traditional tyranny of distance means the country does not need to spend what the Trump administration is demanding.

The problem, Marles says, is that the nation’s strategic interests are in protecting global sea routes that supply Australia’s fuels and export revenues.

“Our risk is not so much the invasion of the continent,” Marles told a security forum in Parliament House hosted by News Corp on Monday.

“We are fortunate that we are an island nation surrounded by oceans.

“But on the other hand, we are deeply reliant on our sea lines of communication.”

Almost all of our liquid fuels are imported by sea, he said, but also through export revenues.

“And so that is our strategic risk. It’s the disruption of those sea lines,” he said.

“It’s the coercion that could result because of the disruption of such sea routes. It is that and the stability of the region in which we live.”

The cost of managing those risks is to work with the US on regional security. And to contribute elsewhere when called upon.

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Albanese’s attempt to meet with Trump

Anthony Albanese’s frustrated attempts to have a meeting with Donald Trump at the G7 meeting in Canada this week have garnered much attention.

Claims of being “snubbed” by the US president are silly, given he did the same to other leaders, including India’s Narendra Modi.

It’s not obvious what benefit Albanese would have secured in Alberta either. Trump is in no mood to grant trade exemptions and any assurance about AUKUS is now subject to a Pentagon review.

Should the first meeting between the men occur in September, as the government is indicating, then both of those issues might have been resolved.

As the PM flies back to Australia, he is now considering whether to race off again next week to a NATO summit in The Hague, which Trump is expected to attend.

This poses at least two risks. Critics may accuse Albanese of starting to look desperate in his efforts to meet the president. Can Trump be relied upon to even show up?

And the prime minister would also be running headlong into Europe’s debate about levels of military spending.

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NATO boss Mark Rutte wants defence spending lifted to 5 per cent of gross domestic product — which would make Albanese’s stated goal of 2.4 per cent look pretty lame.

For now, the government is arguing that it would be good to be in the NATO room given the level of global uncertainty.

But it has not yet explained to Australians what that looks like in reality. Will the US be using Australian bases in its strikes on Tehran, for instance, by providing re-fuelling services as appeared to be the case for long-range US bombings on Houthi targets last year?

Anthony Albanese speaks at the G7 in Canada. (ABC News: Callum Flinn)

‘Fastest way out of danger’

Foreign Minister Penny Wong on Wednesday hardened her rhetoric against Iran’s regime, having started the week urging the US and Israeli governments to show “restraint”.

Wong said the “fastest way out of the danger” is for Iran to “come to the table and stop any nuclear weapons program”.

“Ultimately, the Iranian regime has to make a decision about whether it is going to continue down a path that is so perilous.

“The point that we are at, I think we can all see that Iran needs to come back to the table and stop any program.”

If the conflict erupts, many voters and no doubt parts of Labor’s party room will fast become dissatisfied by Marles’s “full knowledge and concurrence” explanation.

The term itself dates back to the early 1970s, when the Whitlam government was outraged to learn that America was using the North West Cape facility to communicate with nuclear-armed Polaris submarines in the Indian Ocean.

But it wasn’t until the Hawke government that it was formalised in a 1988 treaty with the Reagan administration in relation to joint operations at Pine Gap.

In a speech to parliament in June 2013, then-Labor defence minister Stephen Smith said full knowledge “equates to Australia having a full and detailed understanding of any capability or activity with a presence on Australian territory or making use of Australian assets”.

“Concurrence” means Australia approves the presence of a capability or function in Australia in support of its mutually agreed goals.”

Smith then added a critical caveat: “Concurrence does not mean that Australia approves every activity or tasking undertaken.”

Experts in spirited debate

Defence officials and experts — on both sides of the alliance — are understood to be in the midst of a spirited debate about whether “full knowledge and concurrence” (FK&C for short) need to be reworked in light of the deepening use of Australian soil and waters for US military activities.

It might have been enough to clarify things when the alliance was mostly about satellites and communications and over-the-horizon radar activities.

But a hot war in the Middle East involving heavy bombers and other things is something quite different.

Alex Bristow, senior analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, says the government would be “very reticent to get too directly embroiled in this conflict”, though the Americans might request some level of support.

Bristow notes the Australian Defence Department took the “unusual step” of confirming an ABC story that Australia’s northern bases likely supported air-to-air refuelling operations for US B-2 stealth bombers flying from the continental US for missions against Houthi targets in October.

“Such bombers could play a key role in potential US strikes on Iran, as they can deliver large ‘bunker-buster’ bombs to hit underground targets that the Israelis would struggle to reach,” he says.

Australia may be called upon in other ways, “like contributing to maritime security around the Middle East, or backfilling US capabilities nearer to Australia to free up US forces to deploy to the Middle East”.

Marles’s statement that “Australia’s geography and continent would be crucial to any United States prosecution of a war against China will go down as a dark moment in Australia’s history”, said Paul Keating on Monday.

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Accusing the Labor government of having “intellectually ceded Australia to the United States as a platform for the US” for “military engagement against the Chinese state”, Keating warned that Labor’s “grassroots would not support Australia being dragged into a war with and by the United States over Taiwan”.

“The large majority of new members of the parliamentary Labor Party will not find community support for such a course of action,” he said.

Keating’s anger is not isolated.

Many continue to call for a proper debate over the terms and circumstances of America’s involvement on our continent.

A debate that many believe should have been conducted in full when the Gillard government and Smith agreed with the Obama administration to allow US troops to rotate through a base in Darwin.

Analysis of video and images showing Israeli and Iranian strikes on each other’s territory reveals two very different strategies being employed in the conflict.

ABC NEWS Verify has looked at the footage and images of missile and drone strikes across Iran and Israel, assessing the type of munitions used and what it could mean for the length of the armed engagement.

They reveal Iran’s strategy appears to be one of overwhelming Israeli defence capabilities, in the hope its ground-launched missiles will breach the country’s missile defence systems.

Israel, meanwhile, has employed a strategy using more targeted strikes, launched from fighter jets or drones, to hit infrastructure and personnel.

Decoding the strikes

Expert in war studies in the Middle East for Deakin University, associate professor Ahmed Hashim, said the conflict so far had been solely aerial — fighter jets, drones and missiles launched from silos or the backs of trucks.

“[This is] an aerial war between the most advanced air force in the region and the most advanced ballistic missile capability in the Middle East,” he said.

US bombs Iran live updates: Trump says three nuclear sites ‘successfully’ attacked

Video shot in Beirut, Lebanon, shows some of the ballistic missiles Iran has launched from its territory. However, Dr Hashim said it would be a fraction of the country’s stockpile.

“[They have] the most extensive range of ballistic missiles. No other country in the Middle East and very few other countries in the region have that,” he said.

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When the missiles get through Israel’s missile defence systems, as they did in the city of Haifa, Dr Hashim says he believes hypersonic missiles such as Iran’s Fattah-1 are being used.

“It is an extensive capability that has given them considerable power, but Israel still has an air force second to none,” he said.

Anti-missile systems such as Iron Dome, David’s Sling, and Arrow have a reported 90 per cent success rate, but Dr Hashim said Iran’s retaliatory strategy had been to overwhelm the defences.

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“They’re using a mixture of hypersonics and solid- and liquid-fuel ballistic missiles, and basically what they’re trying to do is to create a concept of operations to deceive the Israeli defensive systems.”

Dr Hashim also disputed Iron Dome’s claimed success rate.

“We also have to be a little bit wary of both sides making bombastic claims, and you know these are quite often for propaganda,” he said, noting that Iran also made unverifiable claims about its missiles.

In Iran, video shows smoke rising from a city.

Dr Hashim said it was evidence of strikes launched from fighter jets, rather than missiles launched from sites within Israel.

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Israel uses a modified version of the F-35 fighter jet, the F-35I, Dr Hashim told ABC NEWS Verify.

Missiles launched from an F-35I can hit a target many kilometres away from the aircraft’s airborne position, he said.

Precision strikes

This image of Haifa’s oil refinery, taken on June 16, shows a large damage zone.

Dr Hashim said ballistic missiles tend to be used on larger targets like power plants and oil refineries that don’t require precision.

The crater from an explosion at an oil refinery in the Israeli city of Haifa. (X: Supplied)

This image, taken in Tehran, which first appeared online on June 13, shows a small puncture in the side of a building near Nobonyad Square, a likely missile attack, he said.

A hole in the side of a Tehran building that was likely created by an Israeli strike. (X: Supplied)

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Separately, an Israeli security source told Reuters that Israel’s intelligence agency, Mossad, had deployed weapons from within Iran, including drones and precision-guided weapons systems.

Grainy footage released by the agency showed two camouflaged figures crouched in desert terrain. The video could not be independently verified.

Israeli intelligence agency Mossad released video which it claims shows its operatives working inside Iran. (X: Supplied)

What’s the end game?

Dr Hashim told ABC NEWS Verify that Iran had let its air force age in recent years.

“Iran’s Air Force is largely an antique museum piece. Because it’s largely 40-45 years old,” he said.

“Iran was hoping to revitalise its air force when sanctions were off.

“But basically, they’ve put their eggs in the basket of ballistic missiles. And they’ve developed a whole generation of ballistic missiles, including the hypersonic Fatah 1 and Fatah 2.”

Israel, Dr Hashim said, is looking for total regime change, and for that, they’ll need time.

The key site inside Iran in the coming days will be the Fordow nuclear facility, according to Dr Hashim.

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Fordow is an underground uranium-enrichment facility about 30km north-east of the city of Qom.

“If you destroy Fordow, you’re actually hitting a major element of the legitimacy of the regime,” Dr Hashim said.

Before and after Israel’s attacks on Iran’s facilities Photo shows thumbnail satellite 1 Missile strikes and fires have torn through Iran’s nuclear and military facilities. These satellite images show the damage that has been inflicted by Israel’s attacks.

Satellite imagery makes it clear that Israel has already done significant damage to Iranian nuclear and military infrastructure. Dr Hashim told ABC NEWS Verify that Israel was trying to wear Iran down.

“This is a war of attrition,” he said.

“It could go from, ‘OK, we’ll degrade its capabilities for as long as possible that the regime falls,’ or enough chaos happens, or they essentially surrender.”