Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Jerusalem, Feb. 18, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that Israel‘s air attack on Iran last month hit an element of Tehran’s nuclear program while degrading its defense and missile production capabilities.

“It’s not a secret,” Netanyahu said in a speech in parliament. “There is a specific component in their nuclear program that was hit in this attack.”

He did not identify the component, but added that Iran’s path to a nuclear weapon had not been blocked.

Netanyahu’s comments came three days after the Axios news website reported that the Israeli attack on Iran in late October destroyed an active top secret nuclear weapons research facility in Parchin, citing three US officials, one current Israeli official, and one former Israeli official.

On Oct. 26, Israeli fighter jets carried out three waves of attacks on Iranian military targets, a few weeks after Iran had fired a barrage of about 200 ballistic missiles against Israel.

This followed a previous exchange of direct attacks in April.

Netanyahu, in his speech, offered a few more details on what Israel had targeted.

Israel‘s April strike, he said, was narrower, taking out one of four Russian-supplied S-300 surface-to-air missile defense batteries around Tehran, the Iranian capital.

He said that in October, Israel destroyed the remaining three batteries and caused serious damage to Iran’s ballistic missile production capabilities and its ability to produce solid fuel, which is used in long-range ballistic missiles.