Israeli intelligence estimates that Iran moved thousands of uranium enrichment centrifuges into tunnels at Pickaxe Mountain, a fortified complex south of the Natanz nuclear site, sometime last fall. The assessment, described in a report obtained by the Wall Street Journal, says the transfer followed the 12-day war of June 2025, when Israeli and American strikes damaged three of Iran’s primary nuclear facilities.
The relocation appears to have been a response to the vulnerability exposed by that campaign. Two of Iran’s enrichment plants at Natanz were among the sites hit, and moving equipment into a mountain complex carved more than 100 meters below bedrock would put it beyond the reach of all but the most capable bunker-penetrating munitions. Pickaxe Mountain itself was not struck in either the 2025 war or the fighting that resumed in February 2026, and satellite imagery reviewed by outside analysts shows the tunnel facility remains under construction.
The intelligence report is careful to note a limitation in what the finding actually proves. Storing centrifuges inside the mountain does not by itself establish that Iran is operating, or intends to operate, an active enrichment line there. The equipment could simply be secured hardware that survived the bombing campaign, moved for protection rather than production. Tehran has maintained since construction began in 2020 that the site is meant only to assemble and manufacture centrifuges, not to enrich uranium.
That ambiguity is the crux of the dispute now playing out between Washington and Jerusalem. Israeli officials involved in the 2025 strike planning have told the Wall Street Journal that the campaign did not go far enough in targeting nuclear weapons-relevant infrastructure, and that unfinished business remains at Pickaxe Mountain specifically. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has reportedly pressed President Trump to authorize a renewed round of large-scale strikes against Iran’s nuclear program and reconstruction efforts. Trump has separately named Pickaxe Mountain as a potential target.
Access for outside verification remains limited. Iranian authorities have restricted International Atomic Energy Agency inspections of nuclear sites, including those damaged in the war, making independent confirmation of the centrifuges’ status and purpose difficult. Before the 2025 strikes, Iran held roughly 440 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60 percent, along with additional lower-enriched stockpiles, dispersed across Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan. How much of that material and equipment survived, and how much has since been consolidated at Pickaxe Mountain, remains an open question the current assessment does not resolve.
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