Nine Killed, 11 Missing After Iranian Missile Strike on Beit Shemesh

At least nine people were killed and 11 others reported missing after an Iranian missile struck the central Israeli city of Beit Shemesh on Sunday, in what authorities described as the deadliest attack on Israel since the conflict began.

Israeli police said more than 45 injured persons with varying degrees of wounds had been evacuated from the scene, while search and rescue operations were still underway.

“So far, more than 45 injured people have been evacuated, and the bodies of nine fatalities have been recovered,” police said, adding that contact had yet to be established with 11 missing persons.

Israel’s emergency service, Magen David Adom (MDA), confirmed that its paramedics pronounced nine people dead at the scene.

Dozens of rescue workers were deployed to the site, where a residential building suffered severe structural damage. AFP photographers reported seeing teams pulling bodies from the rubble, with heavy equipment brought in to search for survivors believed to be trapped beneath the debris.

“When I arrived, I saw a terrible scene,” MDA paramedic Yehuda Shlomo said. “There was heavy structural damage, smoke in the air, and chaos, with frightened residents emerging from the damaged buildings.”

The strike followed a wave of attacks launched by the United States and Israel against Iran on Saturday, which reportedly killed Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei. Tehran responded with retaliatory missile fire that continued into Sunday.

During a previous 12-day confrontation between the two countries last June, nine people were killed in an Iranian missile strike on Bat Yam, near Tel Aviv.

Photographs from Beit Shemesh showed a home reduced to rubble, its roof collapsed into twisted concrete and exposed steel bars, as rescue teams continued efforts to locate survivors.

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