Gleaming trails of bomblets in the night sky have become a familiar sight for Israelis as Iran exploits an apparent vulnerability in the country's air defences. On 5 March, a post on the X account of Iran's late supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, featured a propaganda image of a missile arcing across the sky with the caption: 'Khorramshahr moments are on the horizon.' The Khorramshahr missile, Iran's most advanced ballistic missile, is believed to be capable of carrying a cluster warhead that disperses up to 80 submunitions.
Since that post, the weapon has loomed large in Israeli threat assessments. The latest attack using cluster munitions occurred on Sunday, when an Iranian ballistic missile struck central Israel, injuring 15 people. According to the Israel Defense Forces, roughly half of the missiles launched from Iran since the escalation have carried cluster warheads. The Guardian, reviewing the impact of dozens of Iranian strikes alongside Israeli official statements, identified at least 19 ballistic missiles carrying cluster warheads that struck urban areas since the war began on 28 February, killing at least nine people and wounding dozens.
Cluster munitions, which disperse dozens of bomblets mid-air, have tested Israel's multi-layered missile defence network, including the Iron Dome. Tal Inbar, a missile expert consulting for Israeli defence companies, said: 'Intercepting cluster munitions is fundamentally more difficult than stopping unitary missiles due to several technical shifts in the engagement profile. To be effective, an interceptor must strike the carrier vehicle before dispersal.' Once submunitions are released, interception becomes virtually impossible.
Cluster bombs are inherently indiscriminate, and their use in populated areas is prohibited under international humanitarian law. Neither Israel nor Iran are party to the 2008 convention banning them. Amnesty International condemned Iran's use of cluster munitions last June as a 'flagrant violation' of international law, while Israel has described Iran's use of bomblets towards a centre of mass population as 'a war crime by the Iranian regime'. Since early March, videos have circulated online showing cluster munitions descending over greater Tel Aviv, becoming a defining visual of the war for Israeli civilians.
Two such strikes on 18 March killed a couple in their 70s in Ramat Gan and a 30-year-old Thai worker in Adanim. Israeli officials say that even a direct intercept of a ballistic missile before its warhead splits does not always ensure the submunitions are fully neutralised. Iran's strategy appears to aim not only at slipping smaller payloads through defences but also at overwhelming the system through sheer volume.
