Iran retaliates striking Tel Aviv with cluster warheads
Iran has used cluster warheads to attack on Tel Aviv, in retaliation for Israel’s killing of the Islamic Republic’s powerful security chief Ali Larijani.
Israeli emergency crews in Ramat Gan, where cluster munitions killed an elderly couple during an Iranian missile barrage on March 18, 2026. Photo by Shimon Baruch/TPS-IL
An elderly couple in their 70s were killed early Wednesday when cluster munitions fired from Iran struck a residential building in the central Israeli city of Ramat Gan on Wednesday morning.
Police and emergency responders said fragments from a missile carrying cluster warheads penetrated the roof of a four-story apartment block and exploded inside the couple’s duplex apartment. The two, whose names have not yet been released, were found near the protected room in their home, alongside a walker, suggesting they were unable to reach shelter in time.
“We saw smoke rising from a building with heavy damage and shattered glass,” said Magen David Adom paramedics Inbar Green and Naftali Halberstadt. “Among the rubble were two victims who were unconscious, without a pulse and not breathing, with severe injuries. After examinations, we had no choice but to declare them dead at the scene.”
Authorities said the munition involved was relatively small, estimated at 5 to 8 kilograms, but its impact was lethal at close range. Five other people were reported lightly injured in the blast. Additional casualties were recorded at other impact sites across central Israel, including in Petah Tikvah, Bnei Brak, and Kafr Qasem.
The strike was part of a wider missile barrage targeting central Israel overnight that sent residents to bomb shelters. More than 10 impact sites were identified, according to police.
Ramat Gan Mayor Carmel Shama Hacohen urged residents to heed civil defence instructions. “This is a difficult and heartbreaking scene,” he said. “Even a relatively small warhead can be deadly. We ask residents–when there is an alarm, enter the safe room immediately.”
The attacks also caused damage to infrastructure. In Tel Aviv, shrapnel struck the Savidor Central railway station, damaging several platforms and forcing a temporary halt in train service. Israel Railways said crews worked overnight to repair the site and that operations would resume from 6 a.m., though some lines would run on a limited schedule.
Iranian state media said the use of cluster munitions was intended as retaliation for the assassination of Ali Larijani, the country’s de facto leader since the death of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Cluster warheads break apart in the air, dispersing dozens of smaller explosive submunitions over a wide area. Israeli officials say the bomblets can spread across a radius of roughly 10 kilometers (about six miles), striking multiple targets simultaneously. Critics argue that the submunitions cannot reliably distinguish between military and civilian areas and often fail to detonate, leaving unexploded ordnance that can kill civilians years later.
While they are banned by the Convention on Cluster Munitions of 2008, several countries, including the U.S., Russia, China, Israel, and Iran, have never ratified the treaty and are not party to it.
Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, has rejected proposals conveyed to Iran’s Foreign Ministry for “reducing tensions or ceasefire with the United States”, according to a senior Iranian official who asked not to be identified.
Khamenei, attending his first foreign-policy meeting since his appointment, said it was not “the right time for peace until the United States and Israel are brought to their knees, accept defeat, and pay compensation”.
The official did not clarify whether the younger Khamenei, who has not yet appeared in photos or on TV since being named last week to replace his slain father, had attended the meeting in person or remotely.
US-based Iran human rights group HRANA said on Monday that an estimated 3000-plus people have been killed in Iran since the US-Israeli attacks began at the end of February.
Iranian attacks have killed people in Iraq and across the Gulf states, as well as in Israel. More than 900 people have died since Israel began attacks on Lebanon on March 2, the Lebanese Health Ministry said on Tuesday.
The Strait of Hormuz, a transit point for a fifth of the global oil trade, remains largely closed as Iran threatens to attack tankers linked to the US and Israel. Oil prices have soared.
US President Donald Trump has repeatedly castigated allied countries in recent days for their cool response to his requests for military help to restore the passage of oil tankers through the strait.
Most US allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation have told Trump they don’t want to get involved in the conflict, he said on Tuesday, describing their position as “a very foolish mistake”.
“Because of the fact that we have had such Military Success, we no longer ‘need,’ or desire, the NATO Countries’ assistance — WE NEVER DID!” Trump wrote on social media, also singling out Japan, Australia and South Korea.
The US has given shifting rationales for joining Israel to attack Iran and struggled to explain the legal basis for starting a new war, underscored by the Tuesday resignation of the head of the US National Counterterrorism Centre, Joseph Kent.
Kent wrote in his resignation letter to Trump that Iran “posed no imminent threat to our nation”.
Iran has responded to the Israeli-US attacks with wide-ranging strikes on its Gulf neighbours, some of which host US bases.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said an Iranian strike had landed near an Australian military base at Al Minhad in the United Arab Emirates just after 9am on Wednesday (AEDT).
No Australian troops were wounded and that “everyone is absolutely safe at this point in time”, he said.
Gulf Arab states have faced more than 2000 missile and drone attacks on US diplomatic missions and military bases as well as oil infrastructure, ports, airports, ships and residential and commercial buildings, and most of them aimed at the United Arab Emirates.
Saudi Arabia will host a consultative meeting of foreign ministers from a number of Arab and Islamic countries in Riyadh on Wednesday evening to discuss ways to support regional security and stability, the kingdom’s foreign ministry said.
The US military said on Tuesday it had targeted sites along Iran’s coastline near the Strait of Hormuz because Iranian anti-ship missiles posed a risk to international shipping there.
Oil prices rose about three per cent on Tuesday as Iran renewed its strikes on oil facilities in the United Arab Emirates, and are up around 45 per cent since the start of the war on February 28, raising concerns of a renewed spike in global inflation.
Since Israel and the U.S. began coordinated strikes on February 28 against Iranian targets, 15 people in Israel have been killed in missile attacks or while making their way to shelter, and more than 3,600 have been injured.
Meanwhile, the Israel Defence Forces said it carried out airstrikes on Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon after issuing evacuation warnings to residents in the coastal city of Tyre. The strikes came in response to a Tuesday night barrage of more than 40 missiles launched by the Iranian-backed group toward northern Israel.
Reuters/TPS-IL/AP
