Haifa/Tehran: At least two people have been killed in an Iranian missile strike on an apartment block in Israel’s Haifa on Sunday night.
While two bodies have been recovered, search and rescue teams continue to search for two more missing persons, the Times of Israel reported.
The building was hit by a single, heavy missile that destroyed half of it, and the part that was left standing is very unstable, raising the risk of collapse and complicating the search, Al Jazeera reported.
Iran has been targeting Haifa due to its strategic importance. The port city also sits within the range of Hezbollah rockets fired from across the border in nearby Lebanon.
Even while this search was underway, another missile alert was issued. The alert was lifted later. During the early hours of Monday, three salvoes were detected from Iran, and alerts were issued throughout central parts of Israel. Most of those were intercepted, and others fell in open ground.
According to the report, the missile that hit Haifa was among one of four salvoes fired by Iran on Sunday. Another of those hit a very important industrial and chemical park, down in the south of Israel, near Beersheba.
If the conflict does escalate this week, and if critical infrastructure, including chemical works and petrochemical plants, become targets, then all of these sites will become the front line in this escalating war of missiles between Iran and Israel, authorities fear.
Meanwhile, at least four people were killed in Iran after US-Israeli strikes hit a residential area in eastern Tehran, Mehr news agency reported. Seven others were injured in the strikes that left three residential units “completely destroyed”. At least 50 other buildings were seriously damaged.
Rescue workers are still searching for survivors following the attack, the agency added.
The Fars and Tasnim news agencies had earlier reported that a US-Israeli attack on a residential area in Tehran’s Baharestan County killed at least 13 people.
A US-Israeli strike in the vicinity of Tehran’s Sharif University of Technology has also been reported by Al Jazeera.
The attack damaged the university’s gas station, causing a gas outage in the neighbourhood, Iranian media reported.
The strike also caused damage to the university’s mosque, Tasnim news agency reported, posting a picture of broken windows and ceilings inside the building.
A government spokesperson had earlier said that dozens of universities, schools, and research institutions have been attacked by US-Israeli forces since the war began on February 28.
