On Wednesday night, a group of Palestinian women gathered on the steps outside a beauty salon in Beit Awwa, near Hebron in the occupied West Bank. They were waiting to have their nails done ahead of Eid al-Fitr. An Iranian missile was in the air. Israeli air defenses intercepted it — but the missile was carrying a cluster munition, and intercepting the delivery vehicle doesn't stop the bomblets it has already released. Shrapnel hit the salon. Three women died: Mais Ghazi Masalmeh, 17; Sahira Rizq Masalmeh, 50; and Amal Sobhi Abdel Karim Matawa' Masalmeh, 36. Eight more were injured.
They are the first Palestinians killed in the West Bank as a direct result of the Iran war. They were not in a conflict zone. They were waiting for a manicure on a religious holiday.
What Cluster Munitions Are and Why Iran Is Using Them
A cluster munition is a weapon that releases multiple smaller submunitions — bomblets — in mid-flight. The delivery missile may be intercepted by air defenses. The bomblets it has already dispensed continue on independently. When a missile carrying 20 to 80 bomblets is shot down, the bomblets scatter across a wide area regardless.
Israeli military spokesman Lt Col Nadav Shoshani described the problem during a visit to an apartment in Ramat Gan that was hit: "You can see the entry point of the rocket that flew all the way from Iran in a huge missile, and broke into dozens of pieces. We had dozens of impact points like this in central Israel." He said the cluster munitions were "very difficult to stop."
As the war has progressed, Iran has shifted to using cluster-bomb warheads more frequently. The strategic logic is clear: Israel's layered missile defense (Iron Dome, David's Sling, Arrow-3) is effective against ballistic missiles. A 92% interception rate is remarkable — but cluster munitions degrade that effectiveness because destroying the delivery vehicle doesn't eliminate the threat it has already dispersed.
Cluster munitions are banned by the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions, which has been signed by 111 countries. Iran has not signed it. Israel has not signed it. The United States has not signed it.
The Elderly Couple in Ramat Gan
The Beit Awwa beauty salon was not the only cluster bomb incident the BBC documented. In Ramat Gan, central Israel, an Iranian cluster bomb flew through the ceiling of an elderly couple's top-floor apartment and exploded in their living room, killing them both. Their neighbor, Sigal Amir, described sheltering in her safe room when it hit:
The couple had not been in their shelter when the bomb hit. One of them had mobility issues. A walking frame was found upended on the floor under ash-covered furniture and rubble. The front of the apartment was destroyed, left open to the street.
The BBC reported that 14 Israelis have been killed directly by Iranian strikes since the war began — nine of them in a single attack on Bet Shemesh in the early days of the war.
The Palestinian Victims the War Created
The three women killed in Beit Awwa complicate the geography of this conflict in a specific way. They were not Israeli. They were Palestinian — living in the occupied West Bank, which is not a party to the Iran-Israel-US conflict in any way. They were killed by Iranian munitions that scattered across the West Bank during an attack aimed at Israel.
The Palestinian Red Crescent Society confirmed the deaths and described the scene: ambulances rushed to the salon, found "several casualties and injuries," and transported the bodies to a local hospital. PRCS crews faced "significant difficulties" reaching the site because iron gates leading to the area were closed — gates controlled by Israeli authorities — which "had a direct and critical impact on the time available to save the injured victims."
The official Palestinian news agency Wafa reported that fragments from missiles or intercepts also landed in several other locations across the West Bank during the same attack.
The Israeli military confirmed to BBC that the women were killed "by a direct hit from a cluster munition missile." The PRCS described it as a "direct impact of missile shrapnel."
The Asymmetric Logic
The BBC's Middle East correspondent Lucy Williamson, reporting from Ramat Gan, framed the broader dynamic clearly: "This is an asymmetric war, and Iran is pressing on US sensitivities around oil prices, casualties and the vulnerability of its Gulf allies, to force an end to hostilities."
The asymmetry runs in both directions. Iran cannot match the US-Israeli air campaign. It cannot protect its cities from sustained bombing. It cannot reopen the Hormuz Strait by force. What it can do is impose costs: on Israeli civilians through missile and cluster bomb attacks, on global energy markets through Hormuz disruption, and on US political sustainability through rising pump prices, military costs, and the threat to Gulf allies' infrastructure.
Israel's military says it has destroyed more than 70% of Iran's ballistic missile launchers, and that Iran's attacks against Israel are "now weakening." If accurate, that suggests the pace of attacks should slow. But 70% destruction of launchers still leaves 30% operational, and cluster munitions from even a reduced attack capacity can still kill civilians across a wide area.
War Weariness
Among the details the BBC captured in Ramat Gan is something harder to quantify: the beginning of Israeli public fatigue.
"To be honest, in the last days I'm losing hope a little bit," said Sigal Amir, sheltering again in her safe room as another alarm sounded during the BBC's visit. "I feel there's no end to it, there's no direction, we can't see the light at the end of the tunnel. We must endure this, but I'm not sure how long it will take, where we are going from here."
Prime Minister Netanyahu has described the war as the culmination of a long battle against Israel's regional enemies, and framed Israel as emerging as a regional and global power. Israeli public support for the war, BBC reporting suggests, remains broadly strong. But "broadly strong" and "beginning to ask questions" can coexist — and war weariness is one of the pressure points Iran is deliberately applying.
The Hormuz ultimatum expires Monday. The cluster bombs keep falling. The three women from Beit Awwa are buried. The war is in its 23rd day.
Cluster munitions are very difficult to stop once released — even when the missile carrying them is intercepted. That is why Iran is using more of them.