21SEP

Two dead in Ramat Gan; 61st IRGC wave

4 min read

15:34UTC

An elderly couple — one unable to reach shelter due to a disability — were killed as the IRGC fired its broadest weapon mix yet at central Israel, shutting Tel Aviv's main rail hub.

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ConflictDeveloping

Key takeaway

Multi-warhead missiles targeting civilian infrastructure mark Iran's qualitative escalation toward punishment-based deterrence.

The IRGC launched the 61st wave of Operation True Promise 4 hours after Larijani's death, deploying Khorramshahr-4 and Qadr multiple-warhead missiles alongside Emad and Kheibar Shekan single-warhead projectiles ¹. The weapon mix was broader than any previous wave. The cluster munitions that first penetrated Israeli defences the previous week tested area saturation; multiple-warhead missiles test a different failure mode — warheads that separate during terminal descent and multiply the number of incoming objects Israeli interceptors must engage.

A couple in their 70s were killed in Ramat Gan ². One had a disability that prevented them from reaching shelter. Four others sustained light injuries. Israel's cumulative civilian death toll reached 17, up from 15 as of 14 March . Damage at Tel Aviv's Savidor Central station — the busiest interchange in Israel's rail network — forced suspension of services. Fires broke out in Petah Tikvah and Kafr Qasim.

The mixed salvo creates a layered problem for Israeli air defence. Arrow 3 must engage ballistic threats at the highest altitudes; Arrow 2 handles medium-range intercepts; David's Sling and Iron Dome must cope with whatever penetrates — including separated warheads that arrive as multiple distinct targets. Israel's cabinet approved NIS 2.6 billion (~$826 million) in emergency interceptor procurement days earlier , an outlay that reflects the burn rate: Arrow and David's Sling interceptors cost $2–3 million each, and Iran fired seven salvos in a single night the previous week . Semafor reported the IDF was running critically low on ballistic missile interceptors — a claim the IDF denied.

The IRGC claimed it struck "over 100 military and security targets" in the Tel Aviv area — unverifiable. The verifiable pattern is that each major Israeli strike against a senior Iranian official has produced a named retaliatory operation, and each successive wave has introduced a weapon type or combination not previously deployed. An IRGC spokesman stated days earlier that most missiles fired so far were produced "a decade ago" and that weapons manufactured since the war began remain unused . If accurate, the Khorramshahr-4 and Qadr warheads in the 61st wave are drawn from Iran's older inventory. Its newer arsenal has not yet been committed.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

Iran has been firing missiles at Israel throughout this conflict, but this wave used its more sophisticated weapons — missiles that split into multiple warheads in flight, making them harder to shoot down and able to hit several points at once. The train station hit in Tel Aviv is the main hub of Israel's national rail network; shutting it down affects hundreds of thousands of daily journeys and the movement of goods. The elderly couple killed could not reach a shelter because of a disability — a detail that reveals a gap in Israel's civil defence system, which was designed assuming people can move quickly. Critically, Iran is numbering and naming each wave publicly, which is itself a strategic communication: it tells Israelis and the world that Iran can sustain this indefinitely.

Deep Analysis

Synthesis

The disability of one of the killed victims — preventing shelter access — exposes a structural gap in Israeli civil defence: Home Front Command's shelter system was designed for able-bodied populations and has not been systematically adapted for mobility-impaired residents. Iran's shift to multi-warhead missiles multiplies simultaneous impact points, disproportionately affecting those who cannot rapidly relocate. This is not an Iranian targeting policy but an emergent civil defence vulnerability that will compound as the weapon mix improves.

Root Causes

Iran's publicly numbered retaliatory doctrine serves internal legitimacy needs: the IRGC must demonstrate institutional accountability for each Israeli strike on its leadership to maintain domestic credibility. The sequential numbering prevents any Israeli operation from being framed as a decisive, unanswered blow, regardless of actual damage inflicted.

Escalation

Iran escalated weapon quality — from cluster munitions (previous wave) to multi-warhead ballistic missiles — in direct response to the Larijani killing. This ratchet pattern, where each Israeli strike on a senior figure prompts an Iranian qualitative upgrade rather than a fixed retaliatory level, suggests Iran may deploy its most capable systems (including Fattah hypersonic variants) if further high-profile Israeli strikes occur.

What could happen next?

Consequence
Multi-warhead deployment signals Iran is expending premium inventory per retaliatory wave, potentially accelerating Israeli interest in ending the conflict before Iran exhausts and reconstitutes.
Short term · Assessed
Risk
Sustained civilian infrastructure targeting — rail, power, airports — could trigger Israeli retaliation against Iranian civilian infrastructure in kind, crossing a threshold neither side has yet reached.
Short term · Assessed
Precedent
Publicly numbered retaliatory operations (True Promise 1–61 and beyond) establish an Iranian doctrine of named institutional accountability for each Israeli strike on senior figures.
Long term · Assessed
Risk
Iran's ratchet pattern of qualitative weapon upgrades in response to each Israeli senior-figure killing could lead to deployment of hypersonic variants within weeks if further high-profile strikes occur.
Short term · Suggested

Source Landscape

This story draws on centre-left-leaning sources from Israel

Israel×2

Primary parallel: Iraq's SCUD missile campaign against Israeli cities during the 1991 Gulf War deliberately targeted civilian population centres to create terror, demonstrate Arab military reach, and pressure the US coalition — using inferior but politically potent weapons. Iran's use of precision multi-warhead systems against Tel Aviv infrastructure follows the same strategic logic with substantially greater accuracy and lethality.

Counter-parallel: Hezbollah's 2006 sustained rocket campaign against northern Israel — also named, sequenced, and publicly numbered — did not break Israeli public resolve and ultimately triggered a ground invasion rather than a ceasefire. That precedent suggests sustained civilian targeting can stiffen Israeli political will rather than erode it.

Why it’s relevant now

The 1991 SCUD campaign failed to split the coalition or alter Israeli behaviour, and ended with no Iraqi strategic gain. The 2006 Hezbollah pattern suggests Iran may be miscalculating how Israeli domestic opinion responds to sustained civilian casualties — historically it has unified rather than fractured Israeli society.

Tel Aviv's Savidor Central station handles approximately 100,000 passenger journeys daily and serves as the interchange node for Ben Gurion Airport rail access. Sustained disruption shifts traffic to road freight, increasing fuel consumption and logistics costs at a moment when diesel is already elevated by conflict. Israeli war-risk insurance premiums on transport infrastructure are likely triggering government-backstop provisions, creating contingent public liability. Iranian missile inventory costs per wave — Khorramshahr-4 unit cost estimated at $3–5 million — make sustained high-quality barrages a material drain on Iran's defence budget under existing sanctions constraints.

Consensus view: IISS Military Balance assessments note that Khorramshahr-4 (range approximately 2,000 km, payload approximately 1,500 kg) represents Iran's most capable operational Ballistic missile in active deployment; its use in this wave indicates Tehran is drawing down its highest-end conventional inventory rather than preserving it for strategic deterrence scenarios.

Counter-view: Analysts at Iran's Strategic Research Centre affiliated with the Expediency Council would frame the weapon selection as calibrated signalling — demonstrating capability without deploying the full theoretical arsenal, including hypersonic Fattah variants, thereby preserving deliberate escalation space.

Key tension: Whether Iran is depleting premium inventory faster than it can be replenished given sanctions-constrained access to solid-fuel propellant precursors — a depletion dynamic that could either accelerate Iranian interest in ceasefire terms or trigger a shift to lower-quality but more abundant systems.

First Reported In

Update #40 · Larijani dead; Israel hunts the new leader

Times of Israel· 18 Mar 2026

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Causes and effects

Caused by

Cluster bomblets fall on Tel Aviv area

Previous cluster munition attacks on Israel escalated to 61st wave using broader weapon mix including multiple-warhead missiles

Occurred 15 Mar 2026

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Israel: 15 dead, 3,138 wounded

Israeli civilian death toll rose from 15 to 17 as 61st wave killed couple in Ramat Gan

Occurred 15 Mar 2026

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This Event

Two dead in Ramat Gan; 61st IRGC wave

The 61st wave demonstrates Iran's continued capacity to reach central Israel with a diversified missile arsenal despite eighteen days of degradation strikes, using a multiple-warhead and single-warhead combination that tests Israeli layered air defences against simultaneous failure modes.

Different Perspectives

Shipping and insurance industry

UKMTO counted about 20 US-facilitated Hormuz transits a day to 11 September against only 6 visible on AIS, with traffic still around 90% below the 138-a-day pre-war baseline. War-risk underwriters cannot price hulls they cannot see, or resolve whether the tanker El Gaia hit a mine, as Iran claims, or a missile and drone, as CENTCOM says.

European refiners

European refiners, including Poland's Orlen, absorbed a roughly $26 gap between Dated Brent at $130.80 on 15 September and ICE Brent futures settling at $103.87 on 18 September, a spread that widened from $13.45 on 9 September rather than newly opening. Their futures hedges no longer cover what they now pay for physical barrels.

Saudi Arabia

Saudi Aramco zeroed European term customers' October allocations and rerouted roughly 60 million barrels to Asia through Ras Tanura and Sohar, using Red Sea and Gulf terminal capacity built years ago to cut Hormuz exposure. Riyadh reallocated existing supply rather than negotiating a shortfall with Europe.

Qatar

Qatar's energy minister Saad al-Kaabi told Bloomberg at the Qatar Economic Forum on 20 September that Bessent's two-year Hormuz-obsolescence forecast is wrong, and that Doha has deliberately built no bypass pipeline. Qatar's gas exports run through one waterway by choice, not oversight.

Iran (foreign ministry and Majlis)

Iran's foreign ministry and 130 Majlis deputies moved toward NPT withdrawal this week, with lawmaker Hossein-Ali Haji Deligani filing a triple-urgency bill on 20 September that Speaker Qalibaf has not yet scheduled. Tehran treats treaty membership as leverage still on the table, not yet spent.

Russia and China

Moscow and Beijing vetoed the Panel of Experts' renewal, maintaining Resolution 2231 lapsed in October 2025 and the 2025 snapback was never validly triggered, so the sanctions architecture the Panel enforces has no current legal standing. Both governments frame the veto as upholding law, not shielding Tehran.