A woman was killed and dozens more were injured by an Iranian missile that struck a Tel Aviv residential block late Saturday night, in the first deadly barrage to rock Israel during its renewed fighting with Iran.
The victim, a foreign caregiver in her 40s, was found in critical condition after a ballistic missile struck next to an apartment building in the coastal city, causing heavy damage to the structure and its environs.
Paramedics pronounced the woman dead while rushing her to the hospital.
Twenty-seven others were injured, including two in moderate condition and 25 who sustained light injuries in the attack. They were taken to three different hospitals in the area by Magen David Adom and United Hatzalah paramedics.
Among those rescued from the building were a two-month-old infant and his older sister. Their parents were evacuated from the complex soon after them. According to Channel 12, seven of those injured in the strike were children.
Police chief Daniel Levy arrived at the scene, accompanied by Tel Aviv District commander Haim Sargaroff, where the two held a situation assessment with officers operating at the site.
They were working with firefighters to search for any other trapped individuals in the building, amid extensive rubble and cars that caught fire upon the missile impact.
According to a military investigation of the strike, the woman did not manage to enter a bomb shelter.
The Home Front Command determined that a complete Iranian ballistic missile — not fragments — struck next to the apartment building, causing extensive damage and a large crater. The missile carried a warhead of several hundred kilograms, the Home Front Command assessed.
The building was relatively old, without its own safe rooms, and most residents had evacuated to a nearby public bomb shelter, according to the Home Front Command.
The slain woman, who was a foreign caregiver for an elderly woman, did not manage to evacuate in time and was killed in the strike. The woman she was caring for was extracted by rescue workers from the rubble alive.
The barrage was one of many absorbed by Israel since Saturday morning, when the IDF and the US military launched a major joint strike against Iran, attacking sites across the country and killing Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and dozens of top military officials, after weeks of escalating tensions in the region.
The Israeli strikes on Iran continued into the night, with the Israeli Air Force saying it had completed several more waves of strikes targeting Iran’s ballistic missile launchers and air defense systems.
Meanwhile, the US military carried out nearly 900 strikes across Iran within the first 12 hours of the operation, according to an unnamed US official cited by Fox News.
Iran has fired about 300 missiles in the same period, the official added. Many of the missiles were aimed at Israel, but explosions also shook the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.
Earlier that day, sirens blared intermittently across Israel as the Home Front Command urged civilians to stay close to bomb shelters and avoid non-essential travel. It also said that all educational activities, gatherings and work, except for essential sectors, would be prohibited.
It marked Israel’s second flare-up with Iran within a year after the countries fought a 12-day war in June 2025, which saw daily exchanges of missile barrages that left 28 Israelis dead and over 3,000 hospitalized. The war came to a close after the US launched a devastating bombing campaign on three Iranian nuclear sites.
This time around, both US President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu indicated that the current offensive aims to spark an overthrow of the Islamic Republic, with the latter giving a televised statement vowing to create the conditions for the Iranian people to “free itself from the chains of dictatorship.”
Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
