By Pesha Magid
JERUSALEM, March 27 (Reuters) – Some are the size of small trucks, and they’ve come crashing to the ground almost daily for a month — littering school yards, roadsides and hilltops with visceral remnants of a Middle East at war.
Across Israel and the occupied West Bank, massive chunks of Iranian ballistic missiles have slammed to the earth after being shot out of the sky by Israeli air defence systems.
Near the Palestinian city of Nablus, a young girl posed with a missile fragment that smashed into an olive tree grove. In an Israeli school in a West Bank settlement, children climbed on a huge metal missile case that fell in their playground.
Nearly a month after Israel and the U.S. launched their joint war on Iran, Israelis and Palestinians have become used to frequent official warnings to stay away from missile fragments, which could contain unexploded ordnance or toxic materials.
“These objects may appear harmless at first glance, but can pose a risk of explosion and shrapnel,” Israel’s national ambulance service said on Friday.
MISSILE FRAGMENTS FALL IN PALESTINIAN TOWNS
At least 270 missile fragments have fallen across the West Bank, the majority near Ramallah, with others landing near Nablus, Bethlehem, Hebron, and Salfit, according to figures issued by the Palestinian Authority’s civil defense.
It cooperates with police to move missile fragments to secure locations, said civil defense spokesperson Nael Azza. At least three Palestinians had been arrested for trying to sell off missile fragments as scrap metal, he said.
Since the beginning of the war, movement restrictions imposed by the Israeli military on the West Bank combined with a spike in Jewish settler violence have delayed emergency response efforts in the West Bank, Azza said.
Lahjat Hamaj, 59, a resident of the Palestinian village of Beitin near Ramallah, where a missile fragment had fallen recently, said that it took about two hours for emergency response teams to reach them.
“When this missile (fragment) fell, the sound was strong across the whole town,” said Hamaj.
Israel says its West Bank restrictions since the start of the war are aimed at reducing threats to troops deployed in the area.
SOME FRAGMENTS ARE FIVE METRES LONG
Iran has launched hundreds of missiles towards Israel since the start of the war, during which the U.S. and Israel have bombed thousands of targets in Iran, killing an estimated 3,300 people.
When they are shot down by Israel’s missile defence system, which authorities say has a 90% interception rate, shrapnel and missile fragments often fall to the ground — causing damage, injury and sometimes death.
Missiles launched from Iran and Lebanon towards Israel have killed 18 people in Israel, according to Israel’s ambulance service. Four Palestinian women were killed in the West Bank as a result of missile attacks, according to the Palestinian health ministry.
Most Israelis have access to bomb shelters that protect them from cluster munitions and falling debris, but virtually no such shelters exist for Palestinians in the West Bank.
Some of the Iranian fragments that fall to the ground are four to five metres long. Such fragments are likely from Iranian Ghadr or Emad ballistic missiles, an Israeli military official said.
(Reporting by Pesha Magid; editing by Rami Ayyub and Philippa Fletcher)
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