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At least three Palestinian women have been killed and eight more injured when a beauty salon in the Israeli-occupied West Bank was hit during an Iranian missile attack.
The Israeli military told the BBC the women were killed “by a direct hit from a cluster munition missile”. The Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) said there was a “direct impact of missile shrapnel”.
The incident happened in the town of Beit Awwa, near Hebron, on Wednesday night.
The women are the first Palestinians killed in the West Bank as a result of the Iran war.
At around the same time, a Thai worker was also killed from shrapnel which hit a farming community in Israel, Israeli medics said.
The Israeli military had said it was working to intercept an Iranian missile attack shortly before the strikes.
The salon was in a prefabricated metal structure close to a house. Locals said a bomb or part of a bomb landed yards away and ricocheted into the salon.
A group of women were gathered on steps nearby, waiting to have their nails done ahead of the Eid al-Fitr holiday when explosion happened. The walls and door were raked with holes, while a large hole in the wall of the building showing where shrapnel blew out in the women’s direction. Inside was a scene of destruction.
The official Palestinian news agency Wafa said fragments from a missile or an intercept reportedly landed in several other locations in the West Bank.
Iran has repeatedly fired missiles with cluster-bomb warheads at Israel. These are munitions which release large numbers of bomblets in mid-flight, scattering them over a wide area.
Wafa identified those killed in the salon as Mais Ghazi Masalmeh, 17, Sahira Rizq Masalmeh, 50, and Amal Sobhi Abdel Karim Matawa’ Masalmeh, 36.
The PRCS said response teams, including at least five ambulances rushed to the scene and found “several casualties and injuries”.
The bodies of the three women were transported to a local hospital, along with other victims who sustained “critical and moderate” wounds, it said.
The PRCS had previously reported that four women were killed in the incident before revising the death toll to three.
It added that crews faced “significant difficulties” trying to reach the site due to the closure of iron gates leading to the area, which “had a direct and critical impact on the time available to save the injured victims”.
In Israel, 30-year-old Thai worker Chaiwat Weaw-nil was killed in Moshav Adanim, about 12 miles (20km) north-east of Tel Aviv. Israel’s Magen David Adom emergency service said “metal shrapnel was scattered across the scene” where Chaiwat was found dead.
Additional reporting by Raffi Berg
