Over 100 people were injured on Saturday by Iranian strikes in the cities of Dimona and Arad, in southern Israel, “after Israeli air defenses failed to intercept at least two ballistic missiles,” reports The Times of Israel.
“Iranian state media claimed that these strikes targeted the Israeli nuclear research center, about 10 kilometers from Dimona and 30 kilometers from Arad, in retaliation for a presumed American attack on the Iranian uranium enrichment site in Natanz earlier in the day,” the Israeli headline specifies.
Iran blamed the United States and Israel for the attack, although the Israeli military denied any involvement. The United States neither confirmed nor denied.
According to Israeli emergency services, “at least 27 people were injured in Dimona, including a teenager who suffered serious injuries from missile impact debris,” detailed Ha’Aretz. “In Arad, around 84 people were injured, with ten in serious condition.”
“These Iranian strikes, which managed to ‘play the formidable air defenses’ of the Hebrew state, ‘show that Tehran is still able to inflict damage, even after three weeks of devastating air strikes carried out by the United States and Israel,'” notes The New York Times.
“Dynamics of retaliation”
“If the Israeli regime is unable to intercept missiles in the highly protected Dimona area, it marks, operationally, the entry into a new phase of the battle,” trumpeted Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, speaker of the Iranian Parliament, as quoted by Politico.
Indeed, with these strikes on Arad and Dimona, “the Revolutionary Guards have reached an additional target: proving that the military hierarchy still functions and that some targets are not chosen at random,” echoes Il Corriere della Sera.
“Iran wants to maintain a dynamic of retaliation,” explains expert Danny Citrinowicz to the Italian newspaper. “It’s the law of retaliation: what you do to us, we will do to you. And worse. They are strengthening their deterrence capacity, it’s not about random reprisals.”
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