At least five Iranian ballistic missiles struck populated areas of Israel during the June 2025 armed conflict in violation of the laws of war and should be investigated as war crimes, Human Rights Watch said today. These five missiles, which killed 20 civilians and damaged a hospital, were among the approximately 50 missiles that impacted in Israel, out of 550 launched in total.
Iran's ballistic missile attacks were in response to a series of attacks by Israel on Iran that began on June 13, and, with direct US involvement, continued until June 25. Human Rights Watch documented five strikes in which Iranian ballistic missiles hit civilian residences that were 1.5 to 9 kilometers from military sites in Israel. Four of these strikes killed and wounded civilians in the cities of Bat Yam, Tamra, Be'er Sheva, and Petah Tikva, and one strike hit the Soroka Medical Center in Be'er Sheva, injuring patients and staff.
"While relatively few Iranian ballistic missiles got through Israeli defenses during the 12-day conflict, those that did frequently struck populated areas with no evident military targets," said Ida Sawyer, crisis, conflict and arms director at Human Rights Watch. "Attacks on civilian structures without a military objective are unlawfully indiscriminate and those responsible are liable for war crimes."
Human Rights Watch has previously reported on Israeli attacks on populated areas in Iran in violation of the laws of war.
The Israeli military reported that Iranian strikes during the 12 days of hostilities killed 30 civilians and an off-duty soldier in Israel, hospitalized over 3,300 people-23 with severe injuries-and displaced over 15,000. The Israeli military said Iran had launched 550 ballistic missiles, including 36 that struck populated areas. The rest were intercepted, hit on or near military targets or outside of populated areas, or failed en route.
In June and July 2025, Human Rights Watch researchers travelled to the sites of eight strikes in Israel, including the five documented, and spoke with 30 victims and witnesses. Researchers also analyzed satellite imagery and verified photographs and videos posted on social media. Human Rights Watch wrote to the Iranian authorities on August 18 with specific questions regarding the strikes but received no response. Human Rights Watch also repeatedly sought the views of Israeli authorities but received no response.
Human Rights Watch found that the Iranian attacks were carried out with ballistic missiles that delivered explosive warheads with a mass exceeding 500 to 1,000 kilograms. Unlike many unguided rockets, ballistic missiles are not considered to be inherently indiscriminate weapons. The scope and scale of blast damage to the damaged buildings-including large impact craters and the resulting shockwave-required a warhead of this size and could not have been caused by Israel's anti-missile defenses, Human Rights watch concluded.
In Tamra, northern Israel, on the evening of June 14, the wife, two daughters, and sister-in-law of Raja Khatib, a lawyer who is a Palestinian citizen of Israel, were killed when a missile exploded on the roof of their house. "I felt the explosion," he said. "The electricity went out. The sound was terrifying. I thought I was dead."
In Bat Yam, a coastal city south of Tel Aviv, a missile hit a 12-story apartment building on June 15, killing nine civilians, including three children. Elias Mughrabi, 44, who was asleep on the third floor, said that after the strike, "three different apartments became one … because all the internal walls between them were destroyed instantly."
In the southern city of Be'er Sheva on June 19, a missile hit the Soroka Medical Center. On June 24, another missile hit the city, killing four civilians in a residential building.
The Iranian authorities issued no specific warnings prior to the five documented strikes, nor publicly reported on the intended targets of four of them. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, in posts to X, indicated that the Soroka hospital was not the intended target but baselessly suggested it was a legitimate military target.
The conflict between Israel and Iran is considered an international armed conflict under the laws of war. All parties to the conflict are obligated to distinguish between combatants and civilians and to direct attacks only against military objectives. Deliberate and indiscriminate attacks on civilians and civilian objects, and attacks causing disproportionate harm to civilians, are prohibited. Indiscriminate attacks include those that are not directed at a specific military objective, use weapons or tactics that cannot be directed at a specific military objective, or whose effects cannot be limited as legally required.
Warring parties must take all feasible precautions to ensure attacks target military objectives, and that civilians are given effective advance warnings unless circumstances do not permit.
Individuals who order, commit or assist serious violations of the laws of war with criminal intent-that is, deliberately or recklessly-are responsible for war crimes.
The five Iranian missile strikes documented were indiscriminate because of the absence of a military target, or because the circumstances did not allow these weapons to be directed at a specific military target, or the weapon's effects could not be sufficiently limited.
Governments are obligated to investigate alleged war crimes by members of their armed forces or committed on their territory. Those responsible for war crimes should be appropriately prosecuted.
The use of explosive weapons with wide area effects, such as ballistic missiles, in populated areas poses grave threats to civilians, including by increasing the risk of indiscriminate attacks. Besides the immediate harm to civilians and civilian structures, the damage to critical infrastructure, such as hospitals, can have reverberating, or long-term, effects. Neither Iran nor Israel has endorsed the 2022 Political Declaration committing to adopt and implement national policies and practices to reduce civilian harm by restricting or refraining from using explosive weapons in populated areas.
"Iran's indiscriminate missile strikes in response to Israeli attacks killed and wounded dozens of civilians across Israel and upended the lives of many more," Sawyer said. "Those responsible for unlawful attacks by any of the warring parties should be held to account."
Tamra, June 14
On June 14, shortly after 11 p.m., an Iranian missile struck the roof of a three-story family home in Tamra, a Palestinian city about 20 kilometers east of Haifa, northern Israel, killing 4 civilians and injuring at least 10.
Raja Khatib, 52, said he was outside, away from his house, when he heard the air-raid siren. Wanting to be with his family, he returned home and went toward the safe room on the second floor. Halfway up the stairs, he felt the explosion. "The sound was terrifying," Khatib said. "I thought I was dead. I looked at myself and nothing [was wrong]. The door was broken. The second floor was caved in."
Khatib found his daughter Razan, in the safe room on the second floor. "She was covered in dust, her face was red, and she was in a state of utter shock," he said. Razan told him other members of the family had remained on the third floor. Khatib said
I went up to the third floor.... The stairs were completely broken. I could see the sky.… I'm trying to claw my way through, steel bars coming out of the rubble.... And I'm calling … calling out to them. Calling for Shadha, my oldest daughter; Hala, my youngest daughter, and Manar, my wife. And … my brother's wife, [also called] Manar. I just wanted to get a sign of life. Nothing. I kept screaming for 10 minutes … between the collapsed walls and the sky … visible above me, until the neighbors … the police and the whole world came … And they took out four corpses.
Citing the Magen David Adom emergency service, Israeli media reported that 20 people were also injured in the attack and transported to nearby hospitals.
Human Rights Watch verified a video shared with researchers of the moment the missile struck Khatib's home. Filmed from a neighboring house, the video shows several missile trails in the night sky, indicating that the strike was part of a missile salvo over northern Israel. One flashes across the camera, then hits Khatib's house across the street, followed by a loud explosion.
The missile hit the roof, causing much of the second and third floor to collapse. Another video shows heavy blast damage to surrounding buildings up to 70 meters from the impact site. At the site, the researcher observed some blast damage, including broken windows, as far as 120 meters away.
"I lost everything in one second," Khatib said. "The entire world collapsed over my head … because of a missile that came from Iran. My life is completely destroyed because of this war."
The three nearest military sites that Human Rights Watch was able to identify were about nine kilometers east and north of the Khatib home. Human Rights Watch found no specific statements from the Iranian authorities indicating the target. One witness said that Israeli forces had intercepted missiles over Tamra the previous night.
Though the Khatib family had safe rooms, Tamra has no public shelter, despite being home to 37,000 people, according to the Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem. Because of the Israeli government's discriminatory policies, Palestinian towns have comparatively fewer shelters than Jewish communities. The more than 90,000 Palestinian Bedouins in unrecognized communities in the Negev region of Israel and the millions of Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territory have no access to shelters.
About 46 percent of Palestinian residents of Israel live in housing without standard protection, compared with 26 percent of the entire population of Israel.
Bat Yam, June 15
On June 15 at about 2:30 a.m., a missile struck a 12-story apartment building on Jerusalem Street in Bat Yam, a city 8 kilometers south of Tel Aviv, killing 9 civilians, including 3 children, and injuring at least 65. Human Rights Watch visited the site and spoke with 14 witnesses.
"Suddenly, I heard a whoosh [and] woke up," said Elias Mughrabi, 44, who was on the third floor of the building when it was hit and said the building's internal walls were blown apart. "I had never seen these neighbors, and suddenly … we could all see each other at once.… There was fire and all the water pipes exploded."
Mughrabi said that "a big piece of concrete" fell on his leg. His thigh injury later became infected and he had surgery twice. Doctors told him he will most likely have difficulty walking for the rest of his life.
Sigalit Navaro, 59, who lived in an adjacent building, said that after she awoke to a siren at 2:30 a.m., she and her neighbors quickly made their way to the building's safe room in the basement. Navaro said there was silence, and then there was "an explosion from Armageddon. You could feel the blast in your chest and within a few seconds, we all understood that it [the missile] had hit right beside us." She waited a few minutes before venturing out.
"Everything was bent and broken and distorted," she said. Outside, "there were people laid out on the street, injured, screaming…. I looked up and saw that the entire building was destroyed." Navaro's own apartment was also destroyed.
When the missile struck, Shoshana Siton, 70, was taking cover next to a wall in her building, 100 meters north of the building hit, with her daughter, 2-year-old granddaughter, and a neighbor. Her building did not have safe room. "There was a massive explosion," she said. Debris rained down, hitting and injuring her neighbor on the head. Siton was unharmed, while her daughter went to the hospital with minor cuts and required psychological care for intense distress.
Isaac Renaud, 51, who lived across the street, said that after the blast, "it was pitch black, with many sounds … the sounds of children and babies." He said he helped stop the bleeding on the leg of a neighbor, a younger woman injured by metal fragments. He provided a video he took minutes after the explosion, showing blood on the floor that he said was from her injury, as well as heavy blast damage inside his own building and fire in the alley adjoining the building that was hit.
Those killed in the attack were: Anastasia Buryk, 7; Kostiantyn Tutevich, 10; Illia Pieshkurov, 14; Mariia Pieshkurova, 30; Efrat Saranga, 44; Olena Pieshkurova, 54; Meir Vaknin, 56; Michael Nahum, 61; and Belina Ashkenazi, 94, Israeli media reported. Citing the Magen David Adom emergency service, Israeli media reported that 65 people had been injured, including 3 seriously and 5 moderately.
Human Rights Watch verified and geolocated a video posted online that captured the moment a missile hit the apartment building. Filmed from the balcony of an apartment a block away, the video shows the missile descending at high speed westward, consistent with a ballistic missile fired from Iran. The missile then strikes the apartment building in a large explosion. The person filming steps away from the balcony and then returns to film the resulting large plume of smoke and fire.
At 2:47 a.m., a Telegram account that reports on fire and rescue operations in Israel reported that Bat Yam had been hit. Ten minutes later, the same account published a photograph showing destruction and severe damage across all floors of the eastern facade of the building that was hit. A verified video uploaded to Telegram at 3:05 a.m. shows dozens of emergency workers and people in civilian clothing at the scene as well as a fire at ground level.
The detonation tore down the building's façade and caused widespread damage to nearby buildings. A Human Rights Watch researcher visiting the site on July 1 observed heavy blast damage within 130 meters from the point of impact-across several blocks-and some blast damage visible within 200 meters from the point of impact.
The mayor of Bat Yam told the media that, "Sixty-one buildings were damaged in one way or another." Six local residents told Human Rights Watch that their homes were destroyed. The Bat Yam municipality said the strike left 1,200 people homeless and that 27 buildings would most likely be demolished.
A Home Front Command official told Israeli media the Iranian missile strike involved a warhead containing hundreds of kilograms of explosives. Residents said they were unaware of any military targets in the neighborhood. The closest Israeli military sites that Human Rights Watch was able to identify were about two kilometers north and four kilometers south of the building that was hit. Human Rights Watch found no evidence of any specific statements from the Iranian authorities indicating the missile's target.
Petah Tikva, June 16
A missile struck a 20-story apartment building in the early morning hours of June 16 in a residential neighborhood of Petah Tikva, about 9 kilometers northeast of Tel Aviv, killing 4 civilians and injuring approximately 45. Human Rights Watch visited the site, 17 Asirey Tzion Street, and spoke to one resident present during the attack.
The resident was in their safe room in an adjacent apartment building when the missile hit. "I was terrified," the resident said. "We heard a massive explosion. All the glass broke and there was dust all over the safe room and we felt that there was a direct hit either on our building or very close by."
Israeli media reported that Hadassah Belo, 77, Yaakov Belo, 77, Daisy Yitzhaki, 85, and Ivette Shmilovitz, 95, were killed in the attack. Israeli media also reported that approximately 45 people were physically or psychologically injured, with one in serious condition, and the rest with minor injuries or experiencing anxiety.
Human Rights Watch geolocated and verified a CCTV feed uploaded to X showing 17 Asirey Tzion Street from approximately 330 meters away, whose timestamp reads 4:13 a.m. A few seconds into the video, a missile traveling westward strikes the apartment building. The explosion momentarily blinds the camera feed, and then a large plume of smoke is visible. At 4:27 a.m., reports of the strike emerged on social media.
A verified video uploaded to Telegram at 4:47 a.m. shows emergency personnel at the scene, and a fire burning on the fifth floor. Photographs uploaded to Getty Images of the aftermath show damage between the first and sixth floors. Heavy blast damage is also visible on nearby high-rise buildings, especially on an adjacent building northwest of the impact site. A Human Rights Watch researcher observed some blast damage, such as broken windows and damaged shutters, up to 220 meters from the impact and attributable to this strike.
The two nearest known military sites Human Rights Watch was able to identify were approximately five kilometers west and southwest of the building. Human Rights Watch is not aware of any specific statements from the Iranian authorities indicating the missile's target.
Soroka Medical Center, Be'er Sheva, June 19
On June 19 at about 7 a.m., an Iranian missile struck the roof of the seven-story southern surgical ward building of the Soroka Medical Center, a hospital complex in Be'er Sheva, the largest city in southern Israel. According to the Israeli Ministry of Health, 71 people suffered minor injuries from the strike. Human Rights Watch visited the site and spoke with two witnesses.
A doctor told the New York Times that much of the building had been evacuated in previous days. A person who had been at the hospital told Human Rights Watch that a siren preceded the strike and that staff were moving patients when the missile hit. At that moment, "bits of the ceiling fell, dust [was] everywhere, and the water pipes burst, but there was no panic," the witness said.
A video geolocated by Human Rights Watch and filmed by a person standing at a bus stop north of the hospital campus shows the moment the missile struck. A loud explosion is heard off camera. The camera then pans toward the hospital, where a large mushroom-shaped cloud rises. At 7:45 a.m., the Soroka Medical Center's X account stated that the hospital had been damaged.
A drone video uploaded to X on June 28 shows the point of impact as well as damage to the roof and seventh floor of the eastern end of it. A crater on the roof, approximately 6 by 8.5 meters, indicates that the missile's warhead hit and detonated on the roof, partly collapsing it and causing a fire. A Human Rights Watch researcher visiting the site saw additional damage to the northern surgical ward, with most windows in the northern façade blown off, and observed blast damage within at least 140 meters from the impact.
In a statement published that day, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said, "the regime's army command and intelligence center was targeted with high precision and in pinpoint accuracy near a hospital." Araghchi, the Iranian foreign minister, posted to X on the same day:
Armed Forces accurately eliminated an Israeli Military Command, Control & Intelligence HQ and another vital target. The blast wave caused superficial damage to a small section of the nearby, and largely evacuated, Soroka Military Hospital. The facility is mainly used to treat Israeli soldiers engaged in the Genocide in Gaza 25 miles away.
Human Rights Watch research found that the damage to the Soroka Medical Center resulted from a direct impact, rather than a blast wave from a nearby explosion.
Shlomi Codish, the director general of Soroka, the largest hospital in Israel's Southern District, said in July 2024 that Soroka had treated over 3,200 casualties of conflict, including both civilians and soldiers since October 7, 2023. Soroka, however, is not a military hospital. In any case, under the Geneva Conventions, military hospitals are protected objects that may not be attacked.
Araghchi also published an inaccurate map showing Soroka hospital being near an Israeli military unit "C4I" headquarters and the Cyber Defense Directorate and Gav-Yam Technology Park, in which the labels of the various locations are misplaced. The three nearest military sites that Human Rights Watch was able to identify are about 1.5 kilometers east of the building that was struck. The laws of war require warring parties, to the extent feasible, to avoid locating military objectives near densely populated areas.
Be'er Sheva, June 24
On June 24 at 5:41 a.m., a missile struck a seven-story apartment building on Yoanna Jabotinsky Boulevard in Be'er Sheva. The explosion killed 3 civilians and an off-duty soldier. Israeli media reported that at least 2 civilians suffered moderate injuries and 20 light injuries or anxiety. Human Rights Watch visited the site and spoke with 10 witnesses.
Two residents said that in the hour preceding the strike, the Israeli Military Home Front Command alert system issued an early warning alert, and then another message that the danger had passed. Minutes later, a second alert was issued, just a minute before the strike.
"I ran into the safe room [at the second siren] and less than 60 seconds later, the missile hit," said 73-year-old Yra Kadinski, who lived on the fourth floor with her husband. "The moment my husband got into the safe space and shut the door, the explosion happened." It blew open the shelter door and threw Kadinksi's husband to the ground. Kadinski recalled that she said to her husband, "We have no house." The couple had lived in the apartment for 25 years.
Another resident described what she saw when she left her safe room after the explosion:
As we got out to the staircase, we saw tons of people from the building, [first] responders, [other] people.… I went downstairs and looked up and saw the building destroyed and heard others whispering about dead people. I hadn't fully comprehended the scale of the strike.
Michal Zacks, 50, her two children-Eitan Zacks, an 18-year-old soldier who was off-duty, and Noa Boguslavsky, 18-and their neighbor, Naomi Shaanan, 73, were killed in the strike. Kadinski said she knew all four of them, who lived two floors above her.
Human Rights Watch verified three videos that captured the moment the apartment building was hit. Two CCTV feeds are composited into one video uploaded to Telegram. One shows the moment the missile struck the building. The other CCTV video shows a parking lot nearby with a timestamp that reads 5:41 a.m. A few seconds into this video the camera shakes, and a cloud of dust crosses the camera lens. The third verified video, shot through the window of an apartment approximately 500 meters east of the impact site, shows a missile traveling westward at high speed striking the building. Human Rights Watch verified photographs that show extensive damage to the southeastern facade.
Aerial footage showing the point of impact on the seven-story residential building that an Iranian missile hit in the southern Israeli city of Be'er Sheva, killing four people, on June 24, 2025. © 2025 Elior Cohen Photography
"I've been here [Israel] since the 1970s," said one resident. "I came from Russia, worked all my life, and everything I worked for was destroyed in one minute."
Drone footage recorded by Reuters of the strike's aftermath shows heavy blast damage as far as 40 meters from the impact site, including the destruction of cars in the parking lot adjoining the building. Researchers also observed some blast damage as far as 150 meters from the point of impact. Israeli President Isaac Herzog told the media on June 24 that the building had been hit by "one of the heaviest missiles in the Iranian arsenal, way above 400 kilos."
Residents said they were unaware of any military targets in the neighborhood. The closest military target that Human Rights Watch was able to identify was 1.5 kilometers northeast of the strike site.
On the day of the strike, Iranian Foreign Minister Araghchi posted to X: "The military operations of our powerful Armed Forces to punish Israel for its aggression continued until the very last minute, at 4 a.m. [GMT, which was 7 a.m. in Israel]." Human Rights Watch is not aware of any specific statements from the Iranian authorities indicating the target of the June 24 missile that hit the apartment in Be'er Sheva, though Araghchi acknowledged attacking targets in the city on June 19.
Methodology
For each of the five strikes Human Rights Watch analyzed, researchers interviewed witnesses about the circumstances at the time of impact. Researchers also conducted damage assessments for each site by combining observations from site visits, geolocated footage, and satellite analysis. For some of the social media photographs and videos referenced, researchers drew from and verified the geolocations of open source researchers who published details on GeoConfirmed, a volunteer-driven visual verification platform.
Researchers assessed the proximity of strike locations to nearby military sites using interview material and publicly available sources, including online databases and satellite imagery. Researchers also reviewed public statements by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Iranian Foreign Affairs Ministry, and its minister, for references to potential targets.
Human Rights Watch compared the damage to the expected damage caused by munitions reported to be in use by the Iranian military that would have sufficient range to reach Israel, as well as to the damage that would be expected if interceptor missiles failed.
The types of weapons used by the Israeli military for anti-missile defenses are not publicly known to contain warheads capable of causing the damage visible on the sites. There is also no evidence of significant fragmentation damage that some interceptor missiles can create when detonated above the ground near their targets. Other types of interceptors used for ballistic missile defense would not cause such damage as they do not have explosive warheads.
Casualty counts draw from official Israeli figures. Human Rights Watch was unable in some cases to establish disaggregated figures for physical and psychological injuries.
