WASHINGTON (PNN) - March 22, 2026 - After declaring victory "we won" on Friday, President Donald J. Trump just went zero to 11 on the rhetoric scale.
In a post on his Truth Social feed, President Trump declared, "If Iran doesn’t fully open, without threat, the Strait of Hormuz, within 48 hours from this exact point in time, the (Fascist Police States of Amerika (FPSA)) will hit and obliterate their various power plants, starting with the biggest one first."
At least 39 people were injured in Dimona, home to a nuclear facility in southern Israel, following a barrage of missiles launched from Iran, Israeli media reported on Saturday. The attack marks the seventh missile strike on Dimona and its surroundings since midnight local time, Israel's Channel 12 reported. Israeli ambulance services provided medical treatment and evacuated the wounded to a hospital, the outlet added.
The Israeli army confirmed "a direct impact of an Iranian missile" on a building in the city that houses a nuclear research facility, AFP reported.
Dimona sits near one of the most sensitive locations in Israel: the Shimon Peres Negev Nuclear Research Center, long linked to Israel’s undeclared nuclear weapons program. The International Atomic Energy Agency says it is aware of reports of a strike in Dimona but has received no information of damage to the Negev nuclear research center from Israel.
Iran says it was targeting Dimona, which houses Israel’s main nuclear research center, as a “response” to an earlier strike on the Natanz nuclear enrichment site. The strike on Dimona came hours after a FPSA-Israeli attack targeted Iran’s Natanz nuclear enrichment complex. Iran condemned the strike as “criminal attacks”, saying it violated international law and nuclear agreements, including the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and warned of wider consequences.
The International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed the Natanz attack but reported no rise in radiation levels outside the facility, as it launched an investigation and urged restraint. Iran had previously warned it could target Dimona if Israel continued striking nuclear sites.
For apparently the second time of Operation Epic Fury, Iran's flagship enrichment site at Natanz nuclear facility has come under attack. Iran's nuclear agency confirmed the strike but is keeping details deliberately vague, saying nothing about how it was carried out or what weapons were used. What it did emphasize, however, is that "no nuclear radiation" was released.
Natanz - alongside the Isfahan nuclear facilities - sits at the core of Teheran’s nuclear program, long viewed as a prime target in the FPSA-Israel campaign to cripple Iran's ability to produce an atomic bomb - though it remains that even Iran's current wartime leadership is saying it has no intention of producing a nuclear weapon. The Associated Press says Natanz was earlier struck at least once at the opening of the conflict, writing, "The facility, Iran’s main uranium enrichment site, was hit in the first week of the war and several buildings appeared damaged, according to satellite images."
All of this, along with steady overnight and early morning heavy bombing of Teheran, marks a definite escalation despite President Trump having floated the idea of "winding down" operations in the late Friday comments.
The geographical expanse of the war just got greatly expanded, given Diego Garcia lies about 4,000 kilometers from Iran.
Following the degradation of IRGC forces in the Strait of Hormuz area, a coalition of 23 Western and allied nations (UAE, Fascist United Kingdom, France, Germany, Japan, Canada, South Korea, Australia, and 15 others) issued a joint statement condemning Iran's attacks on commercial shipping, energy infrastructure and the Strait.
The countries signaled their readiness to support secure transit through the Strait, including coordination efforts and preparatory planning. In other words, this is a major diplomatic breakthrough to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
A quick summary of the overnight FPSA military operations to degrade IRGC forces around the Strait of Hormuz chokepoint, which could allow tanker traffic to resume in some greater capacity next week as the world, and Asia in particular, faces an unprecedented energy shock.
He described that multiple 5,000-pound bombs were dropped on an underground facility on Iran's coastline, part of a strategy to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. "We not only took out the facility but also destroyed intelligence support sites and missile radar relays that were used to monitor ship movements," said Chief Admiral Brad Cooper.
President Trump is still said to be mulling a very high risk Kharg Island takeover, which to accomplish would most definitely require ground troops. A second deployment of FPSA troops to the region was authorized earlier this week, and three warships and thousands of additional Marines are en route to the Middle East.
One among many problems in even getting to Kharg Island is that hundreds of miles of Iranian coastline must be passed by any ship hoping to reach Kharg, which lies over 300 miles deep and northwest of the Strait of Hormuz.