Shafaqna English- US-Israeli strikes hit civilian sites, schools, hospitals and historic landmarks across Iran.
Despite claims by the US and Israel that strikes are solely targeting Iran’s military infrastructure, Iranians on the ground are seeing their homes, hospitals and schools bombarded. Many civilians are also dying in the onslaught.
Tasnim news agency puts the civilian death toll at more than 1,230 since the war began on Saturday.
The war on Iran broke out on Saturday and within hours news broke of a deadly strike on the Shajareh Tayyebeh primary school in the city of Minab, in southern Hormozgan province. According to local authorities, at least 165 people were killed, most of them girls and boys between the ages of 7 and 12. Witnesses who spoke to MEE revealed that the school was hit with two strikes, the second of which killed sheltering survivors.
Hours after the Minab school strike, a missile targeted a sports hall on the outskirts of Lamerd, where dozens of teenagers were gathered for training. Local officials cited by Iranian media reported that 18 people were killed in the attack, most of them teenage girls.
An air strike targeting 72 Square in Tehran’s eastern neighbourhood of Narmak damaged a high school, according to Al Jazeera. Authorities reported that at least two children were killed in the attack.
Ganghi hospital was struck on the second day of the assault, causing “very serious damage” to its fertility clinic. The centre is among at least 13 hospitals and other health facilities verified by the World Health Organization (WHO) to have been targeted in the US-Israeli attacks, resulting in four healthcare worker deaths and 25 wounded.
On Sunday, the Iranian Red Crescent released a video showing plumes of smoke spreading from an attack near one of its buildings in Tehran. The attack, which appeared to target the Iranian police headquarters, damaged several nearby hospitals, including Khatam al-Anbiya Hospital, the Motahari Hospital, and the Valiasr Hospital.
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus reported that two emergency centres in the central Iranian city of Sarab and the western city of Hamedan sustained damage in the attacks, with at least two medical staff wounded.
At least 20 people were killed when explosions struck Niloofar Square, a middle-class residential neighbourhood in eastern Tehran. Families had gathered in cafes to break their Ramadan fast on Sunday night. Witnesses reported that the area had been hit by two explosions, indicating another “double-tap” strike. Videos circulated online showing bodies strewn across blood-soaked cafe floors and the streets outside.
Witnesses who spoke to Drop Site News described “blood spraying everywhere”, severed limbs scattered across the floors and “scalps torn off”.
Tehran’s 400-year-old Golestan Palace, the city’s only Unesco world heritage site, sustained damage from a nearby strike on 2 March. Ahmed Alavi, who heads Tehran’s tourism committee, told local media that the blast had damaged mirrors, windows and the building’s historic Orsi doors.
A strike levelled Tehran’s 12,000-seat indoor stadium on Thursday morning. Footage of its smoking remains showed that changing rooms and a newly constructed building used by the cycling federation were razed in the attack, and the swimming pool sustained damage.
Sources: Middle East Eye