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Iran Foreign Minister Javad Zarif said at a Monday news conference accused Israel of being behind an attack on the Natanz nuclear facility and vowed revenge for the attack of sabotage that outside critics is clearly aimed a scuttling diplomatic efforts between Tehran, the U.S., and others. (Photo: PressTV)
Iran Says Israeli 'Nuclear Terrorism' Could Have Led to Catastrophic 'Crime Against Humanity'
"This is sabotage all right," said one outside critic of the attack on Natanz, reportedly carried out by Mossad. "But the target is Biden's diplomacy with Iran."
Apr 12, 2021
Iran's Foreign Ministry said Monday that an attack on its Natanz nuclear facility over the weekend, which it accused Israel of carrying out, could have led to a catastrophic "crime against humanity" if the damage had been more extreme than what occurred.
"If Israel is behind this while [Defense Secretary] Austin visits Israel this is shameless. Iran and the U.S. can't let this derail diplomacy. Time to put in place a return to the JCPOA."
--Jon Rainwater, Peace Action
Speaking during an online news conference with Iranian news outlets, Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said, "Gladly there was no human or environmental damage, but it could have certainly" been worse.
Characterizing Sunday's incident as "appalling" and an act of "sabotage" by the Israeli government, Khatibzadeh said what "took place in Natanz was the work of the Zionist regime, given what it was repeatedly saying before and what is still being heard from various sources."
During his remarks, the spokesperson said older-generation centrifuges taht were damaged in the attack would be replaced by newer ones going forward.
Speaking at the same press conference, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said the attack would not go unanswered even as he referenced ongoing diplomatic talks with European leaders and the United States to reforge the nuclear agreement abandoned by former U.S. President Donald Trump.
The Israeli government "want to take revenge because of our progress in the way to lift sanctions... they have publicly said that they will not allow this." Zarif said. "But we will take our revenge from the Zionists."
The attack on Natanz, reportedly carried out by Mossad, involved an explosion that reportedly caused a power blackout across the facility and damaged centrifuges used to enrich uranium.
According to the New York Times:
The Israeli government formally declined to comment on its involvement, but American and Israeli officials confirmed separately to The New York Times that Israel had played a role. Several Israeli news outlets, citing intelligence sources, attributed the attack to the Mossad, the Israeli spy agency.
Policy experts and anti-war voices noted that the obvious motivation for the Israelis, if they were behind the attack, was to complicate ongoing efforts by the Iranians to compel President Joe Biden to rejoin the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the 2015 agreement forged under the Obama administration and the subject of renewed talks last week in Vienna.
In a statement to the Washington Post, a Biden administration official said the U.S. "had no involvement, and we have nothing to add to speculation about the causes," but outside critics said Israel's attack against Iran's nuclear program--like others in the past--was designed to influence the foreign policy trajectory of its longtime ally and benefactor.
Jamal Abdi, executive director of the National Iranian-American Council (NIAC), tweeted:
\u201cI on the other hand don\u2019t think US allies should blow stuff to undermine the US & manipulate our politics\u201d— Jamal Abdi (@Jamal Abdi) 1618176982
As Trita Parsi, executive vice president for the Quincy Insitute of Responsible Statecraft, a foreign policy think tank, wrote in a thread on social media overnight that the presence of U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin in Jerusalem when the attack took place is likely no coincidence--even as outlets like the Guardian reported it precisely that way.
"The fact that Israel launched this attack (acc to the NYT) while [Austin] was in Israel seem to have been calculated to both confuse Iran (was the U.S. in on it?) and to embarrass Biden," argued Parsi.
Parsi further said that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has shown that Israel is "clearly willing to boldly undermine Biden if he seeks to advance the interest of the United States" by reaching a fresh agreement with Tehran on its nuclear program. "Biden's failure to exact a cost on Bibi for undermining him is precisely why [Netanyahu] will continue to do it."
Jon Rainwater, executive director of the U.S.-based Peace Action, said the focus of the Biden administration must be the diplomatic effort.
"This is sabotage all right," tweeted late Sunday night about the attack on Natanz. "But the target is Biden's diplomacy with Iran. If Israel is behind this while [Defense Secretary] Austin visits Israel this is shameless. Iran and the U.S. can't let this derail diplomacy. Time to put in place a return to the JCPOA."
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Iran's Foreign Ministry said Monday that an attack on its Natanz nuclear facility over the weekend, which it accused Israel of carrying out, could have led to a catastrophic "crime against humanity" if the damage had been more extreme than what occurred.
"If Israel is behind this while [Defense Secretary] Austin visits Israel this is shameless. Iran and the U.S. can't let this derail diplomacy. Time to put in place a return to the JCPOA."
--Jon Rainwater, Peace Action
Speaking during an online news conference with Iranian news outlets, Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said, "Gladly there was no human or environmental damage, but it could have certainly" been worse.
Characterizing Sunday's incident as "appalling" and an act of "sabotage" by the Israeli government, Khatibzadeh said what "took place in Natanz was the work of the Zionist regime, given what it was repeatedly saying before and what is still being heard from various sources."
During his remarks, the spokesperson said older-generation centrifuges taht were damaged in the attack would be replaced by newer ones going forward.
Speaking at the same press conference, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said the attack would not go unanswered even as he referenced ongoing diplomatic talks with European leaders and the United States to reforge the nuclear agreement abandoned by former U.S. President Donald Trump.
The Israeli government "want to take revenge because of our progress in the way to lift sanctions... they have publicly said that they will not allow this." Zarif said. "But we will take our revenge from the Zionists."
The attack on Natanz, reportedly carried out by Mossad, involved an explosion that reportedly caused a power blackout across the facility and damaged centrifuges used to enrich uranium.
According to the New York Times:
The Israeli government formally declined to comment on its involvement, but American and Israeli officials confirmed separately to The New York Times that Israel had played a role. Several Israeli news outlets, citing intelligence sources, attributed the attack to the Mossad, the Israeli spy agency.
Policy experts and anti-war voices noted that the obvious motivation for the Israelis, if they were behind the attack, was to complicate ongoing efforts by the Iranians to compel President Joe Biden to rejoin the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the 2015 agreement forged under the Obama administration and the subject of renewed talks last week in Vienna.
In a statement to the Washington Post, a Biden administration official said the U.S. "had no involvement, and we have nothing to add to speculation about the causes," but outside critics said Israel's attack against Iran's nuclear program--like others in the past--was designed to influence the foreign policy trajectory of its longtime ally and benefactor.
Jamal Abdi, executive director of the National Iranian-American Council (NIAC), tweeted:
\u201cI on the other hand don\u2019t think US allies should blow stuff to undermine the US & manipulate our politics\u201d— Jamal Abdi (@Jamal Abdi) 1618176982
As Trita Parsi, executive vice president for the Quincy Insitute of Responsible Statecraft, a foreign policy think tank, wrote in a thread on social media overnight that the presence of U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin in Jerusalem when the attack took place is likely no coincidence--even as outlets like the Guardian reported it precisely that way.
"The fact that Israel launched this attack (acc to the NYT) while [Austin] was in Israel seem to have been calculated to both confuse Iran (was the U.S. in on it?) and to embarrass Biden," argued Parsi.
Parsi further said that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has shown that Israel is "clearly willing to boldly undermine Biden if he seeks to advance the interest of the United States" by reaching a fresh agreement with Tehran on its nuclear program. "Biden's failure to exact a cost on Bibi for undermining him is precisely why [Netanyahu] will continue to do it."
Jon Rainwater, executive director of the U.S.-based Peace Action, said the focus of the Biden administration must be the diplomatic effort.
"This is sabotage all right," tweeted late Sunday night about the attack on Natanz. "But the target is Biden's diplomacy with Iran. If Israel is behind this while [Defense Secretary] Austin visits Israel this is shameless. Iran and the U.S. can't let this derail diplomacy. Time to put in place a return to the JCPOA."
Iran's Foreign Ministry said Monday that an attack on its Natanz nuclear facility over the weekend, which it accused Israel of carrying out, could have led to a catastrophic "crime against humanity" if the damage had been more extreme than what occurred.
"If Israel is behind this while [Defense Secretary] Austin visits Israel this is shameless. Iran and the U.S. can't let this derail diplomacy. Time to put in place a return to the JCPOA."
--Jon Rainwater, Peace Action
Speaking during an online news conference with Iranian news outlets, Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said, "Gladly there was no human or environmental damage, but it could have certainly" been worse.
Characterizing Sunday's incident as "appalling" and an act of "sabotage" by the Israeli government, Khatibzadeh said what "took place in Natanz was the work of the Zionist regime, given what it was repeatedly saying before and what is still being heard from various sources."
During his remarks, the spokesperson said older-generation centrifuges taht were damaged in the attack would be replaced by newer ones going forward.
Speaking at the same press conference, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said the attack would not go unanswered even as he referenced ongoing diplomatic talks with European leaders and the United States to reforge the nuclear agreement abandoned by former U.S. President Donald Trump.
The Israeli government "want to take revenge because of our progress in the way to lift sanctions... they have publicly said that they will not allow this." Zarif said. "But we will take our revenge from the Zionists."
The attack on Natanz, reportedly carried out by Mossad, involved an explosion that reportedly caused a power blackout across the facility and damaged centrifuges used to enrich uranium.
According to the New York Times:
The Israeli government formally declined to comment on its involvement, but American and Israeli officials confirmed separately to The New York Times that Israel had played a role. Several Israeli news outlets, citing intelligence sources, attributed the attack to the Mossad, the Israeli spy agency.
Policy experts and anti-war voices noted that the obvious motivation for the Israelis, if they were behind the attack, was to complicate ongoing efforts by the Iranians to compel President Joe Biden to rejoin the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the 2015 agreement forged under the Obama administration and the subject of renewed talks last week in Vienna.
In a statement to the Washington Post, a Biden administration official said the U.S. "had no involvement, and we have nothing to add to speculation about the causes," but outside critics said Israel's attack against Iran's nuclear program--like others in the past--was designed to influence the foreign policy trajectory of its longtime ally and benefactor.
Jamal Abdi, executive director of the National Iranian-American Council (NIAC), tweeted:
\u201cI on the other hand don\u2019t think US allies should blow stuff to undermine the US & manipulate our politics\u201d— Jamal Abdi (@Jamal Abdi) 1618176982
As Trita Parsi, executive vice president for the Quincy Insitute of Responsible Statecraft, a foreign policy think tank, wrote in a thread on social media overnight that the presence of U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin in Jerusalem when the attack took place is likely no coincidence--even as outlets like the Guardian reported it precisely that way.
"The fact that Israel launched this attack (acc to the NYT) while [Austin] was in Israel seem to have been calculated to both confuse Iran (was the U.S. in on it?) and to embarrass Biden," argued Parsi.
Parsi further said that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has shown that Israel is "clearly willing to boldly undermine Biden if he seeks to advance the interest of the United States" by reaching a fresh agreement with Tehran on its nuclear program. "Biden's failure to exact a cost on Bibi for undermining him is precisely why [Netanyahu] will continue to do it."
Jon Rainwater, executive director of the U.S.-based Peace Action, said the focus of the Biden administration must be the diplomatic effort.
"This is sabotage all right," tweeted late Sunday night about the attack on Natanz. "But the target is Biden's diplomacy with Iran. If Israel is behind this while [Defense Secretary] Austin visits Israel this is shameless. Iran and the U.S. can't let this derail diplomacy. Time to put in place a return to the JCPOA."
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LATEST NEWS
'Full of Tears,' 1,000 Palestinian Children Graduate From Gaza School for Orphans
"The children wept, as no parents were there to share the moment—their parents had been killed by the Israeli army," said one observer.
Aug 19, 2025
More than 1,000 Palestinians children orphaned by Israel's genocidal assault on Gaza took part in a bittersweet graduation ceremony Monday at a special school in the south of the embattled enclave as Israeli forces continued their US-backed campaign of annihilation and ethnic cleansing nearby.
Dressed in caps and gowns and waving Palestinian flags, graduates of the school at al-Wafa Orphan Village in Khan Younis—opened earlier this year by speech pathologist Wafaa Abu Jalala—received diplomas as students and staff proudly looked on. It was a remarkable event given the tremendous suffering of Palestinians in Gaza, especially the children, and Israel's obliteration of the strip's educational infrastructure, often referred to as scholasticide.
Organizers said the event was the largest of its kind since Israel began leveling Gaza after the Hamas-led attack of October 7, 2023. Israel's assault and siege, which are the subject of an International Court of Justice genocide case, have left more than 62,000 Palestinians dead, including over 18,500 children—official death tolls that are likely to be a severe undercount.
The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics reported in April that nearly 40,000 children in Gaza have lost one or more of their parents to Israeli bombs and bullets in what the agency called the world's "largest orphan crisis" in modern history. Other independent groups say the number of orphans is even higher during a war in which medical professionals have coined a grim new acronym: WCNSF—wounded child, no surviving family.
Hundreds of thousands of other Palestinians are starving in what Amnesty International on Monday called a "deliberate campaign." Thousands of Gazan children are treated for malnutrition each month, and at least 122 have starved to death, according to local officials.
Early in the war, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) called Gaza "the world's most dangerous place to be a child." Last year, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres for the first time added Israel to his so-called "List of Shame" of countries that kill and injure children during wars and other armed conflicts. Doctors and others including volunteers from the United States have documented many cases in which they've concluded Israeli snipers and other troops have deliberately shot children in the head and chest.
Palestinian children take part in a graduation ceremony at al-Wafa Orphan Village in Khan Younis, Gaza on August 18, 2025. (Photo: Abdallah Alattar/Anadolu via Getty Images)
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All of the above have wrought what one Gaza mother called the "complete psychological destruction" of children in the embattled enclave.
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'Betrayal of Humanity': Nearly Half of 383 Aid Workers Killed Last Year Were in Gaza
"No state should be above the law," said Younis Alkhatib of the Palestine Red Crescent Society. "The international community is obliged to protect humanitarians and to stop impunity."
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The United Nations humanitarian affairs office said Tuesday that the new record of 383 aid workers killed last year while performing their lifesaving jobs was "shocking"—but considering Israel's relentless attacks on civilians, medical staff, journalists, and relief workers in Gaza, it was no surprise that the bombardment of the enclave was a major driver of the rise in aid worker deaths in 2024.
Nearly half of the aid workers killed last year—181 of them—were killed in Israeli attacks in Gaza, while 60 died in Sudan amid the civil war there.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) recorded a 31% increase in aid worker killings compared to 2023, the agency said as it marked World Humanitarian Day.
"Even one attack against a humanitarian colleague is an attack on all of us and on the people we serve," said Tom Fletcher, the UN under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs. "Attacks on this scale, with zero accountability, are a shameful indictment of international inaction and apathy."
Israel and its top allies, including the United States, have persisted in claiming it is targeting Hamas in its attacks on Gaza, which have killed more than 62,000 people—likely a significant undercount by the Gaza Health Ministry. It has also repeatedly claimed that its attacks on aid workers and other people protected under international law were "accidental."
"Every attack is a grave betrayal of humanity, and the rules designed to protect them and the communities they serve. Each killing sends a dangerous message that their lives were expendable. They were not."
"As the humanitarian community, we demand—again—that those with power and influence act for humanity, protect civilians and aid workers, and hold perpetrators to account," said Fletcher.
The UN Security Council adopted a resolution in May 2024 reaffirming that humanitarian staff must be protected in conflict zones—a month after the Israel Defense Forces struck a convoy including seven workers from the US-based charity World Central Kitchen, killing all of them.
More than a year later, said OCHA, "the lack of accountability remains pervasive."
The UN-backed Aid Worker Security Database's provisional numbers for 2025 so far show that at least 265 aid workers have been killed this year, with one of the deadliest attacks perpetrated by the IDF against medics and emergency responders in clearly marked vehicles in Gaza. Eight of the workers were with the Palestine Red Crescent Society, which on Tuesday noted that "Palestinian humanitarian workers have been deliberately targeted more than anywhere else."
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UN Secretary-General António Guterres said Tuesday that humanitarian workers around the world "are the last lifeline for over 300 million people" living in conflict and disaster zones.
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"Humanitarians must be respected and protected," he said. "They can never be targeted."
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Israel has blocked the United Nations and other established aid agencies that have worked for years in the occupied Palestinian territories from delivering lifesaving aid in recent months, pushing the entire enclave towards famine.
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Along with the aid workers who were killed worldwide last year, 308 were injured, 125 were kidnapped, and 45 were detained for their work.
"Violence against aid workers is not inevitable," said Fletcher. "It must end."
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"Equipment manufacturers like John Deere have lost millions, but let's remember that working people are hit hardest by the president's disastrous economic policies," said one lawmaker.
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US President Donald Trump has pitched his tariffs on foreign goods as a way to bring more manufacturing jobs back into the United States.
However, it now appears as though the tariffs are hurting the manufacturing jobs that are already here.
As reported by Des Moines Register, iconic American machinery company John Deere announced on Monday that it is laying off 71 workers in Waterloo, Iowa, as well as 115 people in East Moline, Illinois, and 52 workers in Moline, Illinois. The paper noted that John Deere has laid off more than 2,000 employees since April 2024.
In its announcement of the layoffs, the company said that "the struggling [agriculture] economy continues to impact orders" for its equipment.
"This is a challenging time for many farmers, growers, and producers, and directly impacts our business in the near term," the company emphasized.
According to The New Republic, Cory Reed, president of John Deere's Worldwide Agriculture and Turf Division, said during the company's most recent earnings call that the uncertainty surrounding Trump's tariffs has led to many farmers putting off investments in farm equipment.
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Josh Beal, John Deere's director of investor relations, similarly said that "the primary drivers" for the company's negative outlook from the prior quarter "are increased tariff rates on Europe, India, and steel and aluminum."
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"John Deere is once again laying off Iowans—a clear sign economic uncertainty hits the working class hardest, not the CEOs at the top," he wrote in a post on X. "Cheered on by Joni Ernst, Republicans in Washington want to play games with tariffs and give tax cuts to billionaires while Iowa families continue to struggle. It's time to stop protecting the top 1% and fight for the working people who keep our economy strong."
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