One of the missiles that Iran fired at Israel in the early hours of Sunday morning scored a direct hit on an apartment building in the central city of Bat Yam and Rechvot.

In Bat Yam, seven people were killed, including two children, an eight-year-old girl and a 10-year-old boy, and two women, aged 69 and 80.

Multiple people are missing, and search operations are underway at the site. It was reported that four of the missing people were found in hospitals. Rescue teams are continuing their search for three other missing people.

The IDF said that all the victims, dead and injured, were not in bomb shelters when the attack occurred. All the residents of the building who were in bomb shelters at the moment of the attack were unharmed.

MDA reported that paramedics treated 99 people at the impact site in Bat Yam, including four in serious condition, seven in moderate condition, and 88 with light injuries.

Bat Yam resident Meir Yehuda told Kan News, “The entire neighborhood was filled with smoke. The road was covered in glass, window shutters, and all kinds of debris. As I approached the site, I saw that half the building had collapsed. It was completely shaved off and was in flames. The surrounding buildings were also damaged.”

“We know a lot of elderly people live in the area. We could hear people screaming ‘Help! Help!’ from the fifth and tenth floors. There was a fire in the middle. We lifted people on our shoulders.”

Video of missile strike on building in Bat Yam:

In Rechovot, two sites sustained direct hits: the Weizmann Institute and a residential apartment building.

No one was injured at Weizmann, but 37 people in the building were injured: two seriously, 12 moderately, and 23 lightly. A Holocaust survivor was rescued alive from the rubble of the building.

The injured victims were evacuated to seven hospitals in central Israel.

Ynet reported that family members stood weeping at the entrance to a building that took a direct hit. “I’m afraid something happened to my father,” one of them said.

On Motzei Shabbos, a missile hit a three-story home in the Arab city of Tamra in northern Israel, killing four women: a mother and her two daughters and a relative.

President Isaac Herzog wrote on Sunday: “Last night, Iran again unleashed a wave of missiles on Israel — with one goal: to kill.

“Children asleep in their beds.

“Grandparents. Holocaust survivors.

“A beautiful Muslim family in Tamra.

“Jews and Muslims. Israelis and Palestinians.

“Evil. Pure and deliberate. We mourn brothers and sisters torn from us.

“Israel is fighting to eliminate a threat. Tehran is fighting to spread one — hatred, chaos, terror, fanaticism. This is their ideology, and the world must stand with Israel for the sake of humanity.”

(YWN Israel Desk—Jerusalem)