Israel’s military warns people to evacuate the area around Iran’s Arak heavy water reactor
Jun 18, 2025, 6:44 PM | Updated: Jun 19, 2025, 5:32 pm
A protester holds a portrait of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei during a protest against Israeli attacks on multiple cities across Iran, at a bridge leading to the fortified Green Zone where the U.S. Embassy is located in Baghdad, Iraq, Wednesday, June 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)
Credit: ASSOCIATED PRESS
(AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Israel’s military warned people Thursday to evacuate the area around Iran’s Arak heavy water reactor.
The warning came in a social media post on X. It included a satellite image of the plant in a red circle like other warnings that proceeded strikes.
The Arak heavy water reactor is 250 kilometers (155 miles) southwest of Tehran.
Heavy water helps cool nuclear reactors, but it produces plutonium as a byproduct that can potentially be used in nuclear weapons. That would provide Iran another path to the bomb beyond enriched uranium, should it choose to pursue the weapon.
Iran had agreed under its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers to redesign the facility to relieve proliferation concerns.
