Iran missile fire kills 3 Palestinians in West Bank, foreign worker in Israel

Iranian missile attacks have killed three Palestinian women in the occupied West Bank and a foreign worker in central Israel, medics said Thursday.

Falling shrapnel struck a hair salon in the West Bank town of Beit Awa near Hebron late Wednesday, killing the three women, according to the Palestine Red Crescent Society, marking the first Palestinian deaths from Iranian attacks in the ongoing Middle East war.

The victims include 17-year-old Mays Ghazi Masalmeh, according to the official Palestinian news agency, Wafa.

The Red Crescent said at least eight others were wounded, including one woman in critical condition.

Wafa reported that the salon had been set up in a metal caravan next to a house.

AFP images showed civil defence workers inside the caravan, whose roof appeared to be punctured by the falling munition. A rug and bed sheets were covered in blood.

The news agency said missile fragments landed in multiple locations across the West Bank, including within the city of Hebron, after Israel’s military reported another round of Iranian missile launches.

A short while later, Israeli medics said Iranian missile fire had killed a man in central Israel, bringing the death toll in Israel from attacks during the ongoing war to 15.

Israel’s Magen David Adom medical emergency service described the victim as a “foreign worker”, with Israeli media reports saying he was a Thai national working in agriculture.

Thailand’s foreign ministry confirmed on Thursday the death of a Thai agricultural worker, citing information from Israeli officials.

He was killed in Moshav Adanim, a town about 20 kilometres (12 miles) northeast of Tel Aviv and less then eight kilometres from the West Bank, according to the Israeli medical service.

A statement from Magen David Adom quoted its medic Idan Shina as saying “metal shrapnel was scattered across the scene”, where the man was found dead with “severe shrapnel injuries”.

The Israeli military earlier said it had identified a round of missile fire from Iran, which it was “operating to intercept”.

Since that attack, the military reported several more waves of Iranian attacks, triggering air raid alerts across parts of central and northern Israel as well as in Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said they had launched missiles and drones at targets across Israel, according to a statement carried by Iranian news agencies Fars and ISNA.

Israeli media said some of the overnight barrages saw the use of cluster munitions, which explode mid-air and scatter bomblets across a wide area.

Iran and Israel have previously accused each other of using cluster bombs.

Palestinian vice president Hussein al-Sheikh received a phone call from the United Arab Emirates’ foreign minister, Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, to condemn the deadly Iranian missile attack, according to UAE state media.

The UAE itself has suffered numerous Iranian attacks since the war began on February 28, when the United States and Israel launched a massive wave of strikes on Iran.