State media in Tehran said use of cluster munitions was aimed at avenging Israeli assassination of security chief Ali Larijani. According to police, a couple in their 70s were killed when a missile fragment hit their apartment building
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State media in Tehran said use of cluster munitions was aimed at avenging Israeli assassination of security chief Ali Larijani. According to police, a couple in their 70s were killed when a missile fragment hit their apartment building
March 18, 2026Updated:08:44 AM IST
An elderly couple was killed overnight into Wednesday in Tel Aviv's suburb of Ramat Gan when fragments of a cluster bomb fired from Iran hit their apartment block.
Tel Aviv District police chief Haim Sagarof said the couple, a man and a woman in their seventies who have yet to be named, could not reach the residential protected space on time. The cluster munition penetrated the roof of the couple's apartment and exploded in the center of their living room.
The overnight missile barrage wounded five people at impact sites in the Arab town of Kafr Qasem, in central Israel's Petah Tikva and in the Haredi town of Bnei Brak near Tel Aviv.
Israel's Fire and Rescue Authority said on Wednesday that responders were deployed to 34 different scenes, including eight major incidents, following two cluster munition barrages.
After the strikes, Iranian state TV said that the Islamic Republic targeted Tel Aviv with missiles carrying cluster warheads in retaliation for killing of Ali Larijani on Tuesday.
Damage was also reported at the Savidor Central railway station in Tel Aviv. Israel Railways announced that, as a result, train traffic across the country has been temporarily suspended.
Since the start of the war, 14 people have been killed in Israel due to Iranian missile strikes, including four from cluster missiles. Two others were killed on their way to protected spaces.
Lior, who lives near the impact site in Ramat Gan, recounted the moment of the strike.
"I was on the stairwell and I heard an explosion," she told Haaretz. "I saw everything collapsing around me; I was sure it was my house. I saw smoke. I ran home quickly and did not know what to do. It was the scariest thing in my life."
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Tzachi, who lives near the impact site, says that one of the windows of his home was smashed by a rocket fragment. He said that he made his way to a local public shelter shortly after the early warning.
"The shelter was relatively empty; there is a feeling that people go out to the shelter less now," he said. " I heard a boom from the shelter. I went out and saw smoke in the street. There is that moment when you realize it happened here and don't know if you still have a house."
Earlier this week, the IDF also said it had killed the commander of the “Imam Hussein Division” in Beirut, a week after taking out his predecessor.
In the letter, Amir Saeid Iravani said the UAE’s decision to allow its territory to be used for the strikes constituted "an internationally wrongful act that entailed state responsibility."
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