Iran Retaliation Strikes Chemical Plant Near Dimona

By Kurt Nimmo | Another Day in the Empire | March 29, 2026
On March 28, Iran’s Foreign Minister, Seyed Abbas Araghchi, condemned Israel’s attack on key Iranian infrastructure, including steel factories, a power plant, and civilian nuclear sites. He described the attacks as a serious escalation and vowed Iran would respond. “Iran will exact a heavy price for Israeli crimes,” he warned.
That heavy price arrived the following day. Israel’s Home Front Command said sirens were sounding in the Negev Desert, Dimona, Be’era, Arad, and Ashkelon. Ne’ot Hovav, formerly Ramat Hovav, an industrial zone (in occupied Al-Naqab) southeast of Be’er Sheva, and the site of Israel’s main hazardous waste disposal facility, was targeted. The Voice of Israel reported ten warheads falling in the Negev, while other sources indicate 27 targets were struck.
The zone is home to 19 chemical factories, including Makhteshim Agan, a pesticide plant, Teva Pharmaceutical Industries (implicated in the opioid crisis), and Israel Chemicals, a bromine plant. It was reported that a disulfide factory was struck. Molybdenum disulfide is an anti-seize lubricant designed to meet the requirements of military specification. It is not known if the disulfide factory in the Negev produced this disulfide variant.
The Negev Phosphates Chemicals Company, part of the ICL Group, is also located in the Rotem Industrial Zone and situated near the Dimona reactor in Mishor Rotem. It is Israel’s sole recognized nuclear fuel cycle facility. Israel extracts uranium from Negev phosphate deposits. The Rotem complex is a critical node within a broader Israeli-US military-industrial network. In addition to phosphates, the facility produces fertilizers and high-purity phosphoric acid.
The phosphate extracted from the Rotem site is exported to several ICL facilities in the United States. ICL is the sole supplier of white phosphorus to the US military, a substance internationally banned for use in munitions. ICL white phosphorus is used by the occupation army in Gaza and Lebanon to burn people, homes, and agricultural lands.
It is important to note that Site 512, near Kmehin west of Dimona on the Har Qeren mountain, is a secretive US War Department ballistic missile early warning facility operated by the United States Army’s 1st Space Brigade.
The AN/TPY-2 Surveillance Transportable Radar, or Forward Based X-band Transportable, a long-range, high altitude digital antenna array surveillance radar, is located at the site. Iran targeted a similar radar facility at the Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan, and another radar unit in Qatar. “There are strong indications that a number of other similar systems have been destroyed or damaged, as well,” reports the TWZ Newsletter, a website covering military technology.
Initial information provided by the Israeli Ministry of Environmental Protection indicates there was a leak of dangerous ammonia gas at the Ne’ot Hovav site following the Iranian missile attack. “The situation is rapidly escalating and has reached a dangerous and potentially hazardous level,” reported the Israel Home Front Command, a civil defense operation.
Last week, a spokesperson for Iran’s Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters warned “all energy, information technology, and desalination infrastructure belonging to the United States and the (Israeli) regime in the region will be targeted” in response to President Trump’s warning (since scaled back) the US would hit Iranian power plants, “starting with the biggest one first.”
On March 27, Araghchi posted to X saying Israel had violated Trump’s momentary pause and attacked two of Iran’s largest steel factories. “Attack contradicts POTUS extended deadline for diplomacy,” he said, and added that “Iran will exact HEAVY price for Israeli crimes.” In addition, Israel targeted a uranium processing facility in the central Iranian city of Yazd. Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization confirmed the strike, but said there were no casualties or radiation leaks, Aljazeera reported.
The March 29 attack is retaliation for the March 27 strike as Iran, Israel, and the United States continue to escalate a conflict that portends tectonic shocks for the global economy.
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