[Salon] Iran airs footage purporting to show details of alleged Israeli nuclear program

Iranian state television broadcast images of documents and footage on Wednesday that it said relate to Israel’s alleged nuclear activities.

The documentary showed copies of passports said to identify more than 100 Israeli scientists, along with information on the location of military sites. It also featured footage said to have been filmed inside the Dimona reactor in southern Israel.

According to foreign reports, Israel is the only nuclear-armed state in the Middle East, with its main nuclear facility at Dimona. Israel has never confirmed or denied having nuclear weapons.

The Iranian documentary comes three months after an air war between Israel and Iran that began when the Israel Defense Forces conducted a sweeping assault on Iran’s top military leaders, nuclear scientists, uranium enrichment sites and ballistic missile program. Jerusalem said the attack was necessary to prevent the Islamic Republic from realizing its avowed plan to destroy the Jewish state, and that Tehran had been taking concrete steps toward assembling an atomic bomb.

In the documentary, Intelligence Minister Esmail Khatib claimed that in June, Iran obtained information that it used to hit sensitive sites inside Israel during the war. Before the war, Iranian officials had contended that they acquired thousands of classified Israeli documents, including details on nuclear and military sites.

Israel has conducted intelligence operations inside Iran, and has previously uncovered troves of material about Tehran’s nuclear program.

Iran has long tried to recruit a domestic network of spies inside Israel, and Khatib boasted in the program about Israeli sources who funneled a “huge volume of documents” to Tehran, Israel’s Kan public broadcaster reported. The spies, he reportedly said, were motivated by financial gain and animosity toward Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Kan reported that the documentary included purported footage from Dimona, as well as personal information about 189 Israeli nuclear scientists and specialists.

The documentary also included photos of UN International Atomic Energy Agency chief Rafael Grossi that were described as personal, with one showing him kissing a person in a Minnie Mouse costume. Iran claimed the photos had been obtained by Israel, accusing it of spying on Grossi. The IAEA monitors the use of nuclear facilities worldwide, including in Iran.

The documentary comes as tensions continue to simmer over Iran’s nuclear program.

Speaking on Wednesday at the United Nations General Assembly, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian condemned Israel’s June attack on its nuclear facilities, which the United States joined at the end of the war. And he reiterated Iran’s longtime denial of a nuclear weapons program.

“I hereby declare once more before this assembly that Iran has never sought and will never seek to build a nuclear bomb,” he said.

Iran has consistently denied trying to obtain a bomb. However, it has been enriching uranium to levels that have no peaceful application, obstructed international inspectors from checking its nuclear facilities, and expanded its ballistic missile capabilities, all while regularly threatening to flatten Israeli cities.

Iran retaliated to Israel’s strikes by launching over 500 ballistic missiles and around 1,100 drones at Israel. The attacks killed 31 people and wounded over 3,000 in Israel, almost all of them civilians, according to health officials and hospitals.

Since then, Iran’s political leadership has openly targeted the IAEA and its director, accusing them of partial complicity. Tehran slammed the agency for failing to condemn the strikes on its nuclear facilities, and has restricted the agency’s access to its nuclear sites.

In addition, France, Britain and Germany triggered a mechanism for the UN Security Council to reimpose sweeping sanctions at the end of Saturday on Iran, which they say has not cooperated in talks over its nuclear program.

On Wednesday, French President Emmanuel Macron and US envoy Steve Witkoff said that Iran still had a last chance to avoid the sanctions if it addresses their concerns.

Macron met Pezeshkian on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly and urged him to allow full access to UN nuclear inspectors, immediately resume nuclear negotiations and offer transparency on highly enriched uranium whose whereabouts have been the subject of speculation.

“An agreement remains possible. Only a few hours are left. It’s up to Iran to respond to the legitimate conditions we have raised,” Macron wrote on X after meeting Pezeshkian.

Witkoff, US President Donald Trump’s envoy who had been negotiating with Iran until Israel attacked, said without further elaboration that he was still in touch with Iran.

Witkoff said that Iran was in a “tough position” ahead of the return of the so-called snapback sanctions.

“I think that we have no desire to hurt them. We have a desire, however, to either realize a permanent solution and negotiate around snapbacks,” Witkoff told the Concordia summit on the sidelines of the General Assembly.

[Salon] Iran airs footage purporting to show details of alleged Israeli nuclear program

Iran airs footage purporting to show details of alleged Israeli nuclear program

Documentary screened as Iran’s president meets with world leaders at UN; it includes alleged personal details of 189 Israeli nuclear scientists and specialists, photos of Dimona