Israeli military warns people to leave vicinity of Iran's Arak heavy water reactor

Israel's military warned people Thursday to evacuate the area around Iran's Arak heavy water reactor, as hostilities continued between the rival nations amid fears of a wider conflict in the Middle East.

The warning came in a social media post on X. It included a satellite image of the plant in a red circle like warnings that preceded other recent strikes. 

Israel's seventh day of airstrikes on Iran came a day after Iran's supreme leader rejected U.S. calls for surrender and warned that any military involvement by the Americans would cause "irreparable damage to them." Israel also lifted some restrictions on daily life, suggesting the missile threat from Iran on its territory was easing.

Already, Israel's campaign has targeted Iran's enrichment site at Natanz, centrifuge workshops around Tehran and a nuclear site in Isfahan. Its strikes have also killed top generals and nuclear scientists.

A Washington-based Iranian human rights group said at least 639 people, including 263 civilians, have been killed in Iran and more than 1,300 wounded. In retaliation, Iran has fired some 400 missiles and hundreds of drones, killing at least 24 people in Israel and wounding hundreds. Some have hit apartment buildings in central Israel, causing heavy damage.

The Arak heavy water reactor is 250 kilometres southwest of Tehran.

Heavy water helps cool nuclear reactors, but it produces the byproduct plutonium, which can be used in nuclear weapons. That would provide Iran another way to make such weapons without 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.

In 2019, Iran started up the heavy water reactor's secondary circuit, which at the time did not violate the deal.

Britain at the time was helping Iran redesign the reactor to limit the amount of plutonium it produces, stepping in for the U.S., which under U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew from the deal in 2018.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN nuclear watchdog, has been urging Israel not to strike Iranian nuclear sites. IAEA inspectors reportedly last visited Arak on May 14.

Due to restrictions Iran imposed on inspectors, the IAEA has said it lost "continuity of knowledge" about Iran's heavy water production — meaning it could not absolutely verify Tehran's production and stockpile.

Iran's supreme leader spoke a day after Trump demanded in a social media post that Iran surrender without conditions and warned Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that the U.S. knows where he is but has no plans to kill him, "at least not for now."

Trump initially distanced himself from Israel's surprise attack on Friday that triggered the conflict, but in recent days he has hinted at greater American involvement, saying he wants something "much bigger" than a ceasefire. The U.S. has also sent more military aircraft and warships to the region.