Israeli intel said to show Iran has moved thousands of centrifuges to Natanz’s Pickaxe Mountain

Iranians estimated to have transported the enrichment devices in months of activity at underground nuclear site; unclear where the centrifuges came from; Trump has threatened to bomb site

Israeli intelligence has reportedly assessed that Iran has moved thousands of nuclear centrifuges into a site in the Natanz area known as Pickaxe Mountain, burying them deep underground and making them harder to target in aerial strikes.

The Wall Street Journal, citing US and Israeli officials, reported Monday that Israel has told the US that its intelligence shows Tehran made the move last fall, following the 12-day war in June 2025, during which the US and Israel bombed Iran’s nuclear facilities, including some buried underground.

The Pickaxe site was not targeted at the time, nor has it been hit since the start of a more intensive US-Israeli air campaign against Iran on February 28, which was launched in a bid to destabilize the regime and destroy its nuclear and ballistic missile capacities. There has been activity at the site, including movement of trucks and construction, for some 15  months.

It is not clear where the centrifuges that Israel warned about had come from, the report said, noting they may have been brought from other Iranian nuclear sites.

Iran has not allowed the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency to access the site and has not given any specific details about its operations. IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi said in March that back in 2021, Iran said it intended “to have nuclear activity” at Pickaxe, the report said.

Officials were said to be worried that Pickaxe could be used for a small enrichment program to produce fissile material.

According to the report, Pickaxe was commissioned after an explosion — possibly sabotage — in 2020 damaged a centrifuge assembly site at Natanz and it has been under Israeli and US surveillance for years.

The recent fighting with Iran was halted by a temporary US-Iran ceasefire in April and then a memorandum of understanding in June aimed at reaching a permanent end to the war. Trump made limitations of Iran’s nuclear program a central plank of any final agreement, but in the past ten days fighting has flared up again, with both sides saying the MOU is dead. Israel, which was not a party to the MOU and balked at its concessions to Iran, has not been involved in the recent fighting.

As the US has ramped up airstrikes while Iran fires missiles and drones at US bases in the Middle East, President Donald Trump said last week that “Pickaxe is a possible target for a nice big fat shot right near the front door.”

The US leader added at the time: “We see no activity there. They’re not doing well with their nuclear situation… We’ll probably give Pickaxe a shot relatively soon.”

CNN reported earlier this month that satellite imagery showed trucks going in and out of the facility at Pickaxe Mountain, possibly indicating that Iran is working to rebuild its nuclear facilities.

Nate Swanson, who was US National Security Council director for Iran during the Biden administration, told the WSJ that Iranian activity at an undeclared site is worrying.

“A covert breakout is the worst-case scenario,” he said, referring to production of a nuclear weapon. “We don’t know what Iran’s intentions are, but the fact that we can’t verify this site underscores how problematic the status quo is.”

According to a previous WSJ report, the Pickaxe site is buried over 300 feet under granite, making it much deeper than enrichment facilities at Natanz and Fordo, which were hit in 2025.

Tehran, which routinely calls for the destruction of Israel, maintains that its nuclear program is for purely civilian purposes. However, it has enriched uranium to just below weapons-grade, a level that has no peaceful application.