Pope Leo XIV is welcomed by Lebanese President Joseph Aoun and officials upon arrival at Rafic Hariri International Airport, during his first apostolic journey, in Beirut, Lebanon, November 30, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mohammed Yassin

Pope Leo on Sunday said death and suffering caused by the war in the Middle East are a “scandal to the whole human family,” renewing his plea for an immediate ceasefire.

As the US-Israeli war on Iran enters its fourth week, the first US pope said that he continues to follow with “dismay” the situation in the Middle East and in other regions torn apart by war and violence.

“We cannot remain silent in the face of the suffering of so many people, the defenseless victims of these conflicts. What hurts them hurts the whole of humanity,” Leo said at his weekly Angelus prayer in St. Peter’s Square.

“I strongly renew my appeal for us to persevere in prayer, so that hostilities may cease and the way may finally be paved for peace,” he added.

A drone view shows a damage in a residential neighborhood, following a night of Iranian missile strikes which injured dozens of Israelis, amid the US-Israel conflict with Iran, in Dimona, southern Israel, March 22, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Roei Kastro

More than 200 people were wounded in several Iranian strikes on central and southern Israel over the weekend, including children who were seriously injured, after Israeli air defenses failed to intercept at least two ballistic missiles, prompting the defense minister to threaten to send Iran “back decades.”

Fifteen people were injured on Sunday following an Iranian cluster missile strike in the central Israeli cities of Tel Aviv, Petah Tikva, and Ramat Gan. By early evening, several homes and roads were damaged by the strikes.

A direct hit by a missile launched from Iran the prior evening on Arad and Dimona in southern Israel caused widespread damage to buildings and prompted the evacuation of nearly 300 people to hospital. As of Sunday afternoon, 18 children were still hospitalized. 

A ballistic missile carrying a payload of several hundred kilograms of explosives landed next to residential buildings in Dimona, with the shockwave ripping through them and leaving about 30 people wounded, including a young boy.

Israel’s Shimon Peres Negev Nuclear Research Center, located roughly eight miles southeast of the city, was likely the target, analysts said. But according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the site was not harmed in the strikes.

“Information from regional states indicates that no abnormal radiation levels have been detected,” the UN nuclear watchdog tweeted.

Iranian state TV said on Saturday the salvos were in response to an attack on Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility earlier that day.

Tonight, the Iranian regime unleashed a devastating hail of missiles on southern Israel, purposefully striking civilians in Arad and Dimona.

Over 100 people, including many children and elderly, inured.

This is a blatant war crime. Pure terrorism. Yet, world is silent! pic.twitter.com/EBLLrxuJ9t

— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) March 22, 2026

At Soroka Medical Center in Beersheba, more than 160 injured patients arrived overnight, including over 70 children, according to Prof. Shlomi Codish, the hospital’s director. He described the influx as a “highly complex mass casualty event” involving blast injuries, shrapnel wounds, and trauma, including critically and moderately injured patients who required urgent surgery.

Codish said authorities were working to provide “immediate support and shelter” for those impacted, adding that entire families were evacuated to the hospital.

“The challenge is not only medical but also human. The strike hit the heart of a civilian neighborhood, and entire families arrived together, injured and distressed. We worked to map family connections in order to provide coordinated care and preserve family unity as much as possible,” he told The Algemeiner.

The missiles in both Arad and Dimona were engaged by air defenses, but the interceptors failed to bring them down.

In both cases, most of those injured in the missile did not make it to bomb shelters in time. 

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, visiting the scene of the strike in Arad, said it was a “miracle” that no one was killed but added “we don’t want to rely on miracles.”

“If you’re in a shelter, you’re protected,” he said.

Defense Minister Israel Katz, who was also in Arad, accused Iran of intentionally targeting civilians.

“If this continues, we’ll make sure to hit Iran so hard it will be sent back decades,” Katz said.

Tehran aimed to generate domestic pressure on Israel’s government to stop the war, he said, but added that “it won’t happen because our home front is strong.”

In a statement posted on X, IAEA Director-General Rafael Grossi stressed that “maximum military restraint should be observed, in particular in the vicinity of nuclear facilities.”

Since the Feb. 28 US-Israeli strikes on Iran, Tehran has launched more than 400 missiles toward Israel, with the Israeli Air Force saying roughly 92 percent were intercepted. More than 4,500 Israelis have been evacuated to hospitals from the strikes, the health ministry said.

A drone view shows a damage in a residential neighbourhood, following a night of Iranian missile strikes which injured dozens of Israelis, amid the U.S.-Israel conflict with Iran, in Dimona, southern Israel March 22, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Roei Kastro

Southern Israeli towns woke to widespread damage on Sunday after air defenses failed to intercept two Iranian missiles overnight that injured scores of civilians in one of the worst attacks of the war so far on Israeli soil.

As daylight broke, the scale of the damage in the desert town of Arad, where one of the strikes hit a multi-story apartment bloc, came into clearer view, with entire floors blown open by the blast.

Uri Shacham, the chief of staff of Israel’s ambulance service, said at least eight buildings were damaged by the missile, which left a crater not far from the apartment blocks.

Footage verified by Reuters showed flames engulfing the top floor of an apartment building shortly after the strike. Search and rescue teams moved from floor to floor inside the damaged buildings.

Israeli military spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani said both strikes had been carried out with conventional ballistic missiles. He declined to comment when asked about the initial findings of a military investigation into the failure to intercept the missiles.

NETANYAHU SAYS MIRACLE NO ONE KILLED

Most Israelis receive alerts on their mobile phone when launches from Iran are identified. An air raid siren sounds and they then have a few minutes to go to safe rooms or public bomb shelters.

“It is a miracle that no-one was killed,” Israeli Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday, standing in the crater at the impact site in Arad.

Pointing at the blown out walls of the apartment bloc and then at the enforced undamaged wall leading to a shelter below ground, Netanyahu urged Israelis not to be complacent. No one would have been hurt, he said, had all sought shelter in time.

In Arad, 31 people, including 18 children, were hospitalized, at least 9 of them in serious condition, according to the hospital. Dozens more were lightly injured.

Israel said Iran was targeting civilian population areas. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said they targeted military and security-related sites in retaliation for Israeli strikes against Iranian sites.

Arad and Dimona, another city that was hit, are located close to Israel’s secretive nuclear reactor and several military bases, including Nevatim Air Base, one of the country’s largest.

In Dimona, 5 people were hospitalized, including a 12-year-old boy in serious condition, the hospital said.

Since joint US-Israeli strikes on Iran on February 28, Israel has come under daily missile fire from Iran. At least 20 civilians have been killed in Israel and the Palestinian territories, including one Israeli killed in an attack by Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah on Sunday.

At least 15 people were hospitalized on Sunday in fresh Iranian attacks, according to emergency services, including a cluster munition that struck in Tel Aviv.

Israeli and US strikes have killed at least 1,300 people in Iran so far, according to the Iranian government. The US-based rights group HRANA, which tracks human rights violations in Iran, has recorded 3,320 people killed, including 1,406 civilians and 1,167 military personnel, with the remainder not yet determined. Reuters could not independently verify the data.