Shards of glass and charred plastic debris littered the streets of Arad on Sunday morning, hours after a missile from Iran struck a residential neighborhood in this small desert city in southern Israel.
The blast on Saturday night carved out a crater of sand and twisted metal in a grassy courtyard and shattered windows more than half a mile away, according to residents.
The strike capped a day of intense fire in the south and came three hours after a direct hit on another desert city, Dimona, which lies just eight miles from Israel’s main nuclear research installation and reactor.
Arad and Dimona are the closest cities to the nuclear facility, one of the most guarded sites in Israel. Dozens of people were injured in the two strikes, at least 10 of them seriously, according to the emergency and health services. There were no fatalities.
In Arad, a city of roughly 30,000 people in the Negev Desert, three four-story apartment blocks closest to the impact site are set to be demolished, according to Kfir Levy, a spokesman for Arad’s city hall.
Residents from surrounding buildings trickled in on Sunday morning to inspect the damage and try to collect their belongings. Some saw their hollowed-out homes for the first time.
The city had never been directly hit before, including in more than two years of wars with Gaza, Lebanon and Iran, Mr. Levy said at the site.
Many of the 80 or so people wounded in Arad were not inside a shelter when the missile hit, Mr. Levy said. Among them were many older residents who have struggled to descend multiple flights of stairs every time a siren warned of incoming missile fire, he said.
The mayor of Arad, Yair Maayan, said the missile’s warhead contained a quarter of a ton of explosives and caused a huge shock wave.
Mike Getner, 45, a taxi driver who lives several blocks from the impact site, said the blast that followed the siren at roughly 10 p.m. felt like nothing he had experienced in his city before.
“The house shook, you could feel the blinds shudder, you felt the ground shaking,” he said. “You could tell it was right here.”
Isaac Waxler, a store owner who lives a block away from the impact site, said he was sheltering at home with his wife when they heard the blast. His son and eight grandchildren live in the buildings that surround the impact site.
“It was a terror,” Mr. Waxler said, describing the moments he tried to reach his son. His son managed to tell him he was OK before the lines went down, Mr. Waxler said.
The family of ten moved to Mr. Waxler’s house to spend the night. The grandchildren, ranging in age from 2 to 15, were “in shock,” Mr. Waxler said, and proceeded to share their experiences for hours. “We let them get it out of their system,” he said.
