Israel says Iran fired cluster bomb-bearing missile at civilians
This is the first reported use of the controversial weapons in the war; cluster munitions can kill or maim long after a conflict ends
Iran launched a missile at Israel on Thursday that scattered small bombs with the aim of increasing civilian casualties, the Israeli military and its Washington embassy said, the first reported use of cluster munitions in the seven-day-old war.
“Today, the Iranian Armed Forces fired a missile that contained cluster submunitions at a densely populated civilian area in Israel,” the embassy said in an email that did not identify the area.
“Cluster weapons are designed to disperse over a large area and maximise the chances of a harmful strike,” the email continued.
“Iran unlawfully fired deliberately at civilian population centres, and seeks to maximise the damage to civilians in them by using wide-dispersal munitions.”
Iran’s mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Israeli news reports quoted the Israeli military as saying the missile’s warhead split open at an altitude of about 7km (four miles) and released around 20 submunitions in a radius of around 8km (five miles) over central Israel.