Iran launched missile strikes on southern Israel on the night of Saturday, March 21, 2026, hitting the towns of Dimona and Arad and sending a large fireball through the sky, videos circulating on social media showed. The strikes, which Iran said were carried out in retaliation for damage to its Natanz nuclear enrichment site, damaged multiple buildings and left dozens injured, authorities and international agencies said.
First responders reported widespread destruction in some residential areas, with several buildings reduced to rubble and door and window frames blown out by blast impact. Dimona lies roughly 20 kilometres from Israel’s main nuclear research centre in the Negev desert, a fact that heightened regional concern even as footage-yet to be independently verified-showed residents huddled inside homes as missiles struck.
According to AFP, 84 people were injured in Arad, 10 of them seriously, while 33 were wounded in Dimona. Among the Dimona casualties were a 10-year-old boy seriously hurt by shrapnel and a 40-year-old woman, officials said. Emergency services were dispatched to both towns to treat the wounded and search damaged structures.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said additional emergency crews were being sent to Arad and Dimona and vowed to continue striking Iran after what he described as “a very difficult evening.” Iran’s Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf posted on X that, “If the Israeli regime is unable to intercept missiles in the heavily protected Dimona area, it is, operationally, a sign of entering a new phase of the battle.”
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported no detected damage to Israel’s sensitive nuclear research infrastructure and said regional states had not reported abnormal radiation levels following the strikes. Dimona has housed Israel’s primary nuclear research centre since 1958; Israel maintains a policy of neither confirming nor denying its possession of nuclear weapons.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said its forces also struck other southern Israeli towns and targeted military sites in Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates. The Natanz facility, which hosts underground centrifuges used for uranium enrichment, was earlier damaged during the June 2025 conflict, a context Tehran cited in explaining its retaliation.
Original Source: https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/middle-east-war-fireball-from-sky-videos-show-chaos-as-missiles-strike-israels-dimona-11249307#publisher=newsstand
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Publish Date: 2026-03-22 07:46:00
