The Associated Press news agency says Israel carried out targeted killings of at least 14 Iranian scientists, including chemists, physicists and engineers, during its assault on the country, Al Jazeera reports.

The agency cited Israel’s Ambassador to France, Joshua Zarka.

The envoy claimed the assassinations would make it “almost” impossible for Iran to build weapons from whatever nuclear infrastructure and material may have survived the Israeli and US bombings.

“The fact that the whole group disappeared is basically throwing back the programme by a number of years, by quite a number of years,” Zarka said.

The AP said Zarka spoke to them on Monday, while on Tuesday, Iran television reported the death of another Iranian nuclear scientist, Mohammad Reza Sedighi Saber, in an Israeli strike. Saber had survived an earlier attack that killed his 17-year-old son on June 13.

Despite Zarka’s claim, analysts say Iran has other scientists who can take the place of those killed and that the assassinations can only set back the country’s nuclear programme, not end it.