The death toll is ratcheting up as the U.S.-Israel war against the Iranian regime enters its second day, with casualties mounting among all parties as well as elsewhere in the Middle East.
At least nine people, including children, were killed when their bomb shelter suffered a direct missile strike in the Israeli city of Beit Shemesh on Sunday.
The deaths follow the killing on Saturday of a woman in Tel Aviv, in another incident with multiple casualties. Another man, a centenarian, reportedly died after falling while trying to get to a shelter.
The steep death toll in Beit Shemesh underscores that Israel’s bomb shelters are no match for the heavy artillery being fired from Iran in response to the attack there, which has killed the regime’s supreme leader and an untold number of other officials. On Sunday, former president Mahmoud Ahmedinajad, an anti-Israeli hardliner who may have been plotting an attempt to take power, was reported to have been killed as well.
Authorities say Israelis should still head to shelters when sirens sound, because they are effective in protecting against shrapnel that can fall in the case of intercepted missiles. (The shelters are also protective against the kind of smaller-scale rockets like those historically fired from Gaza.)
Meanwhile, the U.S. military announced on Sunday that three American soldiers had been killed during the operation. They did not offer details about where or under what conditions the deaths took place.
President Donald Trump warned when announcing the operation early Saturday that U.S. service members could die, saying, “That often happens in war.”
Deaths are also mounting in Gulf states where Iran has been firing since the war began, raising the possibility that other countries could get involved as Iran widens its targets beyond U.S. bases. Iranian missiles and drones have hit sites in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar, damaging a luxury hotel, ports, oil infrastructure and other locations.
The UAE said on Sunday that three people had been killed there. It said its military had intercepted 500 Iranian drones and 150 ballistic missiles.
Directing a message to Iran, a diplomatic advisor to the Emirati president, Anwar Gargash, tweeted: “Return to your senses, to your surroundings, and deal with your neighbors with reason and responsibility before the circle of isolation and escalation widens.”
