JERUSALEM – Israeli officials said on Friday that a new United Nations report adds credibility to their warnings about Iran, as tensions grow between the Jewish state and its allies over how to tackle Tehran’s suspect nuclear program.

The report by the U.N. nuclear agency, which emerged on Thursday, concluded that Iran had stepped up the installation of centrifuges capable of making weapons-grade material in an underground bunker at its Fordo underground facility, safe from most aerial attacks.

The U.N. report also said Iran has effectively shut down inspections of a separate site — the Parchin military complex — suspected of being used for nuclear weapons-related experiments, by shrouding it from spy satellite view with a covering.

It drew rapid criticism from Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi, who said Friday the assertion about Parchin “does not make any technical sense.” Iran denies that it is seeking to develop weapons but its government sees expansion of its nuclear program as a right.

An Israeli official said that the U.N. report “confirms what Prime Minister (Benjamin) Netanyahu has been talking about for years now, that the Iranian nuclear program is designed to achieve a nuclear weapon.”