New Delhi:
Videos showed a massive ball of fire hurtling from the sky before falling on Israel’s Dimona and Arad cities, as Iran launched missile strikes on the southern region in retaliation for the targeting of its Natanz nuclear enrichment site.
Several buildings were reduced to rubble and dust in the strikes on Saturday night, assuming significance as Dimona lies barely 20 kilometers away from Israel’s main nuclear research center.
A ball of fire descends from the sky: the documentation of the impact on Dimona@Itsik_zuarets pic.twitter.com/8R1G7lmDVW
— here news (@kann_news) March 21, 2026
Many videos on social media, yet to be verified, also showed people inside their homes at the time the missiles struck. Visuals show door and window frames being blown off from the impact, as residents’ belongings are strewn about.
First responders said 84 people were injured in the town of Arad, 10 of them seriously, while 33 were wounded in Dimona, per AFP. Among the injured in Dimona was a 10-year-old boy, who sustained serious injuries after being hit by shrapnel, and a 40-year-old woman.
HORRIFYING FOOTAGE: Inside an apartment hit by an Iranian missile in southern Israel pic.twitter.com/1NqaoD8ODA
— Israel War Room (@IsraelWarRoom) March 21, 2026
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said more emergency crews were being sent to Arad and Dimona. He vowed to continue striking Iran after what he called a “very difficult evening”.
Iran’s Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said in a post on X, “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.”
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said no damage has been detected at Israel’s sensitive nuclear research infrastructure. It noted that information from regional states indicated no abnormal radiation levels had been detected following the incident.
The remote city of Dimona houses Israel’s main nuclear research center in the Negrev desert since 1958. The country is widely believed to possess nuclear weapons, though its leaders neither confirm nor deny it.
The Natanz facility hosts underground centrifuges used to enrich uranium for Iran’s disputed nuclear programme and sustained damage in the June 2025 war.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) saying forces also targeted other southern Israeli towns as well as military sites in Kuwait and the UAE.
Source link
[ad_3]
