Fifteen killed, more than 3,138 wounded since 28 February 1. The wound-to-kill ratio: roughly 209:1. The toll has risen from 14 dead five days earlier, when NPR compiled a two-week audit of the war's costs — one additional death and hundreds more wounded as Iran's firing tempo and cluster munition use have escalated.
The disparity is the signature of Israel's layered civil defence working under conditions it was not built to sustain indefinitely. Iron Dome and Arrow intercept the majority of incoming fire. A nationwide shelter network limits blast exposure. The Home Front Command's warning system — sounding multiple times nightly — gives civilians seconds to reach cover. These systems hold the death toll to a figure that would be far higher in any country without comparable infrastructure. They cannot prevent the accumulation of shrapnel wounds, blast concussion, cuts from shattered glass, and injuries sustained in the nightly scramble for shelters. Four of Sunday's eight casualties were hurt running to cover, not by Iranian munitions directly.
At roughly 174 wounded per day, the medical burden compounds. Hospitals absorb not only acute trauma but the downstream load of rehabilitation, psychological care, and chronic injury management. Iran's shift to cluster munitions — which scatter submunitions across residential areas even when the carrier warhead is partially intercepted — has accelerated the wounded count. Israel's civil defence architecture kept casualties in single digits during shorter exchanges: Iran's April 2024 barrage, last summer's Twelve-Day War. The difference now is duration. The systems work on any given night. The question is whether the population and medical infrastructure can absorb this rate for the six weeks — or longer — that the IDF's operational timeline now envisions.
