Iranian missile strikes Dimona
An Iranian missile hit the Israeli town of Dimona, home to a nuclear facility. Iran said it was retaliation for strikes on its own nuclear site at Natanz.
Dimona hosts a facility believed to possess the Middle East’s sole nuclear arsenal, although Israel has never admitted to possessing nuclear weapons.
Iran’s atomic energy organisation earlier accused the US and Israel of hitting the Natanz enrichment complex but noted there was “no leakage of radioactive materials reported”.
The Israeli army told AFP there had been a “direct missile hit on a building” in Dimona. Magen David Adom first responders said their teams had treated 33 people injured, including a 10-year-old boy in serious condition with shrapnel wounds.
After the attack, UN nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi repeated a “call for military restraint to avoid any risk of a nuclear accident”.
The Israeli military also struck a facility embedded within a Tehran university “utilised by the Iranian terror regime’s military industries and ballistic missiles array to develop nuclear weapon components and weapons”.
Three weeks of heavy US-Israeli bombardment appear to have done little to blunt Iran’s ability to retaliate with missile and drone attacks across the region. The United Arab Emirates said it had faced aerial attacks after Iran warned it against allowing attacks from its territory on disputed islands near the strategic strait of Hormuz.