JERUSALEM
\nDefense Minister Israel Katz said Monday that Israel had conducted a \u201cpowerful strike\u201d on Iran\u2019s largest petrochemical complex, after Iranian media reported multiple explosions at the site.
\nThe military \u201cjust carried out a powerful strike on Iran\u2019s largest petrochemical facility, located in Asaluyeh \u2014 a central target responsible for about 50 percent of the country\u2019s petrochemical production,\u201d Katz said in a video statement.
\nIsrael carried out a similar strike on the Mahshahr Petrochemical Special Zone in southwest Khuzestan province on Saturday, a local Iranian official said, adding that five people were killed.
\n\u201cAt this point, the two facilities, which together account for roughly 85 percent of Iran\u2019s petrochemical exports, have been taken out of operation and are no longer functioning,\u201d Katz said.
\n\u201cThis represents a severe economic blow amounting to tens of billions of dollars to the Iranian regime.\u201d
\nIsrael also carried out strikes last month on gas facilities at the South Pars Special Economic Zone in Asaluyeh. The South Pars\/North Dome mega-field \u2014 the largest known natural gas reserve in the world \u2014 is shared between Iran and Qatar.
\nIn recent days, Israel has targeted key industrial sectors as part of the ongoing military campaign against Iran. On Friday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israeli strikes had destroyed around 70 percent of Iran\u2019s steel production capacity, significantly undermining Tehran\u2019s ability to manufacture weapons.
\nSteel is a strategically important material used in industrial and military production, including for missiles, drones and ships. Katz said he and Netanyahu had ordered the military \u201cto continue striking with full force Iran\u2019s national infrastructure.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
JERUSALEM Defense Minister Israel Katz said Monday that Israel had conducted a \u201cpowerful strike\u201d on Iran\u2019s largest petrochemical complex, after Iranian media reported multiple explosions at the site. The military \u201cjust carried out a powerful strike on Iran\u2019s largest petrochemical facility, located in Asaluyeh \u2014 a central target responsible for about 50 percent of the …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":95994,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-95960","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95960","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95960"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95960\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":95995,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95960\/revisions\/95995"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/95994"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}