Iran has hit back at Israel with missiles carrying cluster warheads in what it said was retaliation for the assassination of security chief Ali Larijani.
Authorities said the attacks killed a couple in a neighbourhood close to Tel Aviv, where there are also key military facilities, bringing the death toll in Israel from the war to at least 14.
Israel has said Iran has repeatedly used cluster warheads, which disperse into multiple smaller explosives mid-air and spread over a wide area, making them difficult for the nation’s Iron Dome defence system to intercept.
Key officials in Tehran said the death of Larijani would not hinder its operations with replacements swiftly appointed, as Israel launched a swathe of strikes against Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Israeli Defence Force (IDF) official Col Olivier Rafowicz told The Telegraph a couple in their 70s were found dead just outside the door to a bomb shelter in their building in Ramat Gan, to the east of Tel Aviv.
Rafowicz said: “The goal was to hit civilian centres”.
After the attack, Iranian state television reported that Tehran had targeted Tel Aviv with missiles carrying cluster munitions in what it said was retaliation for the assassination of Larijani.
The Iranian Revolutionary Guards said they launched the attacks “in revenge for the blood of martyr Dr Ali Larijani and his companions” with Iran’s army chief also threatening further “decisive and regrettable” retaliation.
Emergency workers respond to a ballistic missile attack in eastern Tel Aviv
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GETTY
Israeli airstrikes in Beirut killed at least six people on Wednesday, the Lebanese health ministry said, shaking the heart of the Lebanese capital as Israel intensified its offensive against the Iran-backed Hezbollah group.
Israeli airstrikes also pounded the Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs of Beirut, where footage showed explosions lighting up the night sky.
The latest strikes suck Lebanon deeper into the war in the Middle East after Hezbollah attacked Israel on March 2, saying it aimed to avenge the killing of Iran’s supreme leader.
Israel has responded with an offensive that has killed more than 900 people in Lebanon and forced more than 800,000 from their homes, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry.
Emergency personnel work at the site of an attack in Tel Aviv’s central train station
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REUTERS
A fireball rises from the site of an Israeli airstrike that targeted a building in Beirut’s Bashoura neighbourhood
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GETTY
