Israel Says Iran Struck With Missile Armed With Cluster Munitions
The Israeli military said Iran launched a missile with a cluster munition warhead at a populated area in central Israel on Thursday, according to Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, a military spokesman — the first report of that type of weapon being used in the current war.
Iran's mission to the United Nations declined to respond to the Israeli claim, which was linked to a ballistic missile that struck Or Yehuda, Israel, and nearby towns. No one was killed by the missile or its bomblets, and it was unclear if anyone was injured.
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Cluster munitions have warheads that burst and scatter numerous bomblets, and are known for causing indiscriminate harm to civilians. More than 100 countries have signed on to a 2008 agreement to prohibit them — but Israel and Iran have not adopted the ban, nor have major powers like the United States, Russia, China and India.
Videos and photographs verified by The New York Times show an unexploded bomblet on the patio of an apartment building in Or Yehuda after an Iranian missile barrage on Thursday.
The object, which resembles a narrow artillery shell or rocket warhead, is most likely a submunition similar to those that have armed some Iranian ballistic missiles since 2014, according to Fabian Hinz, a research fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a London-based think tank.
'The chances of hitting something increase when you have a missile that might not be as pinpoint-accurate as you would like it to be,' Mr. Hinz said in an interview. 'Sometimes you might not need that much destructive force — imagine you want to hit an air-defense or a missile-defense system. These things are not armored, they are pretty soft targets, so just having a geographical spread of the attack could be worth it even if the explosive force and penetrative power is less.'
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