The strike on the desert city in southern Israel came hours after the Iranian media said US-Israeli forces had struck Iran’s Natanz nuclear enrichment complex on Saturday morning. Israel’s military has denied striking the Iranian facility.
A missile strike at a residential area in the city of Dimona, which hosts Israel’s main nuclear research centre, left at least 37 people in need of urgent care on Saturday evening (local time), according to Magen David Adom (MDA), the country’s national emergency medical service (EMS). This came as Iran said it was targeting Israel’s nuclear programme in retaliation for an earlier strike on its nuclear enrichment facility in Natanz.
According to the MDA, its team treated more than three dozen people, including those with shrapnel injuries.
“Update from southern Israel: Over 40 people treated by Magen David Adom after ballistic missile hits residential area,” it said in a tweet.
The wounded included a 10-year-old boy, who the EMS service said sustained shrapnel injuries but was in moderate condition.
People who were injured while rushing to shelters and those with anxiety exacerbated by the strike also received urgent care, the MDA added.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, acknowledged reports of the projectile incident in Dimona but had received no indication of damage to the Negev nuclear research centre there.
It said regional authorities reported no abnormal radiation levels following the strike and that it was closely monitoring the situation.
The nuclear research centre in Dimona opened in 1958. While Israel is widely believed to possess nuclear weapons, its leaders neither confirm nor deny this speculation.
The strike on the desert city in southern Israel came hours after the Iranian state media said US-Israeli forces had struck the Shahid Ahmadi-Roshan Natanz enrichment complex on Saturday morning.
No radioactive leaks were detected, and nearby residents were not at risk.
Israel’s military said it was not responsible for striking Natanz. Meanwhile, the head of the IAEA, Rafael Mariano Grossi, said the agency was investigating the purported attack.
Condemning the alleged airstrike on the Natanz enrichment facility, Russia’s Foreign Ministry said such strikes posed a “real risk of catastrophic disaster throughout the Middle East.”
The Natanz facility was also hit in the first week of the ongoing war and during the 12-day war in June last year.
ISRAEL’S ARAD ATTACKED AS WELL
Arad, another city in southern Israel, also came under Iranian missile attack around the same time as Dimona.
The Israeli military said it was not able to intercept the incoming projectiles that hit the two southern cities. It was the first time Iranian missiles penetrated Israel’s air defence systems around Dimona.
“If the Israeli regime is unable to intercept missiles in the heavily protected Dimona area, it is, operationally, a sign of entering a new phase of the battle,” Iran’s Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said on X before word of the Arad strike spread.
“This has been a very difficult evening in the battle for our future,” Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement following the strike on Arad.
(With inputs from agencies)
