Scores hurt after Iranian missiles hit Israeli desert towns

Iranian missile strikes on Israeli towns cause widespread damage and injuries, marking a significant escalation in the ongoing conflict.

Southern Israeli towns woke to widespread damage on Sunday after air defences failed to intercept two Iranian missiles ​overnight that injured scores of civilians in one of the worst attacks of the war so far ‌on Israeli soil.

As daylight broke, the scale of the damage in ​the desert town of Arad, where one of the strikes hit a ⁠multi-story apartment bloc, came into clearer view, with entire floors blown open by the blast.

Iran-Israel war updates on March 22, 2026

Uri Shacham, the chief of staff of Israel’s ambulance service, said at least eight buildings were damaged by the missile, ‌which left a crater not far from the apartment blocks.

Footage verified by Reuters showed flames engulfing the top floor of an apartment building ‌shortly after the strike. Search and rescue teams moved from floor to floor inside ‌the ⁠damaged buildings. Israeli military spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani said both strikes had been ⁠carried out with conventional ballistic missiles. He declined to comment when asked about the initial findings of a military investigation into the failure to intercept the missiles.

Most Israelis receive alerts ​on their mobile phone when launches from ‌Iran are identified. An air raid siren sounds and they then have a few minutes to go to safe rooms or public bomb shelters. “It is a miracle that no-one was killed,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday (March 22, 2026), standing in ‌thecrater at the impact site in Arad.