Iran ballistic missile hits Israeli city in terrifying strike near top-secret facility that is key to country's atomic weapons program
By Dan Woodland
Daily Mail
Mar 21, 2026
Emergency response personnel work after an Iranian missile strike on Dimona
An Iranian ballistic missile has injured a 10-year-old old boy and around 38 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 and exploding in a huge fireball.
The Israeli army said there was a 'direct missile hit on a building' in Dimona and it was reviewing how the impact happened after videos also showed an interceptor trying and failing to down the missile seconds before the impact.
Israel's emergency service Magen David Adom said 39 people had been injured by shrapnel from the blast, including a 10-year-old boy who is in serious condition and a 40-year-old woman in moderate condition with injuries from glass fragments.
The other 37 casualties are in moderate condition and they have all been taken to Soroka Medical Center in Be'er Sheva around 30km away from Dimona.
Israel's Home Front Command has also dispatched search and rescue forces to impacted areas. Israeli police also released pictures of officers in a building with a large hole blown in the wall.
Iranian state TV has since claimed the attack was a 'response' to an earlier strike on its own nuclear site at Natanz, which Israel has denied responsibility for.
Iran's atomic energy organisation said earlier today that the 'Natanz enrichment complex was targeted this morning', though there was 'no leakage of radioactive materials reported', according to a statement carried by local media.
The city of Dimona is located around 13km from Israel's Shimon Peres Negev Nuclear Research Center - a top-secret nuclear weapons facility - in the Negev desert.
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
Israel's Negev Nuclear Research Center in the Negev desert
While Israel says the Dimona plant officially focuses on research, it is widely believed to possess the Middle East's sole, if undeclared, nuclear arsenal.
The country has never officially confirmed its nuclear power, but it is believed Israel has possessed a significant number of nuclear weapons since the 1960s.
Earlier this month, Iran threatened to target the site if Israel and the US sought regime change in the Islamic Republic.
Following the strike, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said it had not received 'any indication of damage' to the research centre.
'Information from regional States indicates no abnormal radiation levels have been detected,' it added in a statement.
IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi also stressed that 'maximum military restraint should be observed, in particular in the vicinity of nuclear facilities'.
It comes 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.
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 Keir Starmer gave the go-ahead to for Donald Trump to use UK-based bombers threatening the Strait of Hormuz.
Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch has accused the Prime Minister of a 'cover up' on the details and questioned why the public were not told 'sooner'.
The IDF confirmed the Diego Garcia attack was the first time Iran had launched a long-range missile, capable of reaching a distance of around 4,000km, since the start of the war.
'The Iranian terrorist regime poses a global threat. Now, with missiles that can reach London, Paris or Berlin,' it added.
Hours after the strike, Iran declared it had 'missile dominance...over the skies of the occupied territories' and warned its 'new tactics and launch systems' would leave the US and Israel 'astonished'.
Israeli soldiers work at the scene of damage after Iranian missile barrages struck Dimona on Saturday
An Israeli soldier uses a torch to inspect the damage after an Iranian missile in Dimona
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).
The strike on Diego Garcia took place just seven days after Israeli forces struck Iran's main space research center in Tehran, amid fears it was being used to 'develop satellite attack capabilities in space.'
Experts have warned that if Iran has greater military prowess, the missile threat could now extend well beyond the Middle East and within distance of most capital cities in Western Europe.
This includes Paris, which is 4,198km (2,609 miles) from Tehran, while London lies on the 'edge of vulnerability' at around 4,435km (2,750 miles).
Despite the strike, Keir Starmer has vowed not to use its bases in Cyprus for any offensive action following a phone call with the country's president Nikos Christodoulide.
'The British Prime Minister reiterated ... that the security of the Republic of Cyprus is fundamental to the United Kingdom and, to that end, a decision has been taken to enhance the means contributing to the preventive measures already in place,' a Cypriot government spokesperson said.
'Finally, the Prime Minister reiterated that the British Bases in Cyprus will not be used for any offensive military operations.'
An Iranian-type Shahed drone caused slight damage when it hit facilities at Britain's Akrotiri airbase in southern Cyprus on March 2, with two others later intercepted. There have been no further known security incidents.
Britain retained sovereignty over two bases on the island when it granted its colony independence in 1960.
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