An Iranian ballistic missile has injured a 10-year-old old boy and around 19 other people in the Israeli city of Dimona.
Footage of the strike was posted on social media, showing the projectile hurtling towards a residential area before exploding in a huge fireball.
Other angles of the strike show an interceptor trying and failing to down the missile, which continues plummeting towards the city.
Israel‘s Magen David Adom said around 20 people had been injured by shrapnel from the blast, including a 10-year-old boy who is in moderate condition.
‘In the Dimona area, MDA teams are treating at all scenes to approx 20 patients with shrapnel injuries, injuries sustained on the way to shelters, and anxiety symptoms: a male, 10, is in moderate condition with shrapnel injuries,’ it wrote on X.
Israel’s Home Front Command has also dispatched search and rescue forces to impacted areas.
The city of Dimona is located close to Israel’s Negev Nuclear Research Center – a critical research facility for the country’s nuclear program – in the Negev desert.
It comes hours after two ballistic missiles were fired towards Diego Garcia, a base in the Indian Ocean jointly operated by the US and the UK, on Friday night.
The moment an Iranian ballistic missile hurtles towards the Israeli city of Dimona, injuring a 10-year-old old boy and around 19 other people
Moments later a huge fireball can be seen engulfing the ground
Sources reported that one of the missiles failed in flight, while the other was intercepted by a US warship in what is believed to be the first ever strike on the military base.
The precise timing of the incident is as yet unknown, though the Government confirmed on Saturday that it took place before Starmer gave the go-ahead to the US – with Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch now accusing the Prime Minister of a ‘cover up’ on the details and questioning why the public were not told ‘sooner’.
Defence experts have suggested the incident is significant in that it has revealed Iranian missiles can cover far greater distances than they were previously thought to be capable of.
Diego Garcia lies around 3,800km (2,360 miles) from Iran – undermining the regime’s previous assertion that its ballistic missiles could only reach 2,000 km (1,240 miles).
