An Israeli childcare center was obliterated by a ballistic missile and dozens of Iranian military targets were bombed Friday — as Israel and Iran continued to pummel each other with strikes a week into their war.
Disturbing surveillance video showed an Iranian “cluster rocket” wiping out the daycare facility in Beersheba in southern Israel early on Friday, officials said.
“The building sustained significant damage. Miraculously, no children or staff were present — the attack occurred just after closing time on Friday,” the Colel Chabad Daycare Center acknowledged after the strike.
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Hours later, sirens started sounding across other parts of the Jewish state as missile impacts were reported in Tel Aviv, the Negev and Haifa, Israel’s military said.
In the port city of Haifa, one hospital said it received 19 wounded people from the site of an Iranian missile blast. Two people had serious-to-moderate injuries and the rest were lightly hurt, the hospital said.
Israel’s paramedic service, Magen David Adom — or MDA, said a 16-year-old boy was in serious condition after suffering shrapnel wounds to his upper body and a 54-year-old man was in moderate condition after a shrapnel injury to his legs. The service didn’t specify which strikes the two had been wounded in.
Still, about 20 missiles were fired in the latest Iranian strikes, an Israeli military official said.
The missile and drone attacks used long-range and ultra-heavy missiles against military sites, defense industries and command and control centers, Fars news agency reported, citing an Iranian military spokesman.
Israel, for its part, said it conducted airstrikes in Iran on Friday with more than 60 aircraft hitting industrial sites to manufacture missiles.
At least five people were injured when Israel hit a five-story building in Tehran that housed a bakery and a hairdresser’s, Fars reported.
The military also struck the headquarters of Iran’s Organization of Defensive Innovation and Research, which the US has in the past linked to alleged Iranian research and testing tied to the possible development of nuclear explosive devices.
It also carried out airstrikes targeting the areas around Kermanshah and Tabriz in western Iran, where the military said 25 fighter jets struck “missile storage and launch infrastructure components” first thing Friday.
Iran, though, didn’t immediately acknowledge the losses.
“A week has passed since the operation began,” Israeli military spokesperson Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin told reporters. “We are strengthening our air control in the region and advancing our air offensive. We have more sites to strike in Tehran, western Iran and other places.”
Separately, Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz said he’d instructed the IDF to step up its onslaught on Tehran in an effort to “destabilize the regime.”
“We must strike all symbols of the regime and its mechanisms of oppression, such as the Basij, as well as the base of the regime’s power, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps,” Katz said.
