By Jonathan Landay

(Reuters) -Iran fired at least one missile at Israel that scattered small bombs with the aim of increasing civilian casualties, the Israeli military said on Thursday, the first reported use of cluster munitions in the seven-day-old war.

Israeli military officials provided no further details.

Israeli news reports quoted the Israeli military as saying the missile’s warhead split open at an altitude of about 4 miles (7 km) and released around 20 submunitions in a radius of around 5 miles (8 km) over central Israel.

One of the small munitions struck a home in the central Israeli town of Azor, causing some damage, Times of Israel military correspondent Emanuel Fabian reported. There were no reports of casualties from the bomb.

Cluster bombs are controversial because they indiscriminately scatter submunitions, some of which can fail to explode and kill or injure long after a conflict ends.

The Israeli military released a graphic as a public warning of the dangers of unexploded ordnance.

“The terror regime seeks to harm civilians and even used weapons with wide dispersal in order to maximize the scope of the damage,” Israel's military spokesperson, Brigadier General Effie Defrin, told a briefing.

Iran’s mission to the United Nations and Israel’s embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

"They are egregious weapons with their wide-area destruction, especially if used in a civilian populated area and could add to the unexploded ordnance left over from conflicts," said Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association advocacy group.

Noting that Iranian missiles can be imprecise, he said that Tehran should know that cluster munitions "are going to hit civilian targets rather than military targets."

Iran and Israel declined to join a 2008 international ban on the production, stockpiling, transfer and use of cluster bombs that has been signed by 111 countries and 12 other entities.

After extensive debate, the U.S. in 2023 supplied Ukraine with cluster munitions for use against Russian occupation forces. Kyiv says Russian troops also have fired them. The three countries declined to join the Convention Against Cluster Munitions.

(Reporting by Jonathan Landay in Washington; additional reporting by Alexander Cornwell in Jerusalem; Editing by Howard Goller)