Iran’s government says a wave of US and Israeli air strikes since February 28 has inflicted heavy damage on civilian life and infrastructure, and that roughly 30% of those killed are adolescents and children. Tehran’s spokesperson Fatemeh Mohajerani told state media that 390 residential buildings, 528 commercial properties and 13 medical facilities have been destroyed in the strikes, framing the campaign as one that has deliberately struck non‑combatant targets.
The Iranian Red Crescent has put the broader death toll from the conflict involving the United States, Israel and Iranian forces at at least 1,300 people, a figure that Tehran has used to underscore the human cost. Mohajerani said international humanitarian organisations’ local branches — nine Red Crescent offices in Iran, she added — have themselves come under attack, compounding the emergency response challenges.
Among the most harrowing claims is the bombing of a girls’ primary school in Minab, in Iran’s southern Hormozgan province. Iranian officials say more than 170 pupils were killed after the site was struck five times, a mark of the intensity and apparent persistence of the strikes that Iran accuses the US and Israel of conducting against civilian sites.
Tehran has also singled out cultural and recreational infrastructure. The government says two municipal buildings in the capital were hit, along with major sports venues such as the Azadi Stadium, Iran’s largest football arena and the national team’s home ground, and the Behesat sports centre. Such targets underline how the strikes have extended beyond traditional military or governmental facilities.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps signalled an escalation in the wider regional contest on March 6, announcing it had struck a US base in the United Arab Emirates — an operation Iran said was in retaliation for strikes on Minab. The move marks a dangerous broadening of the battlefield and highlights the vulnerability of Gulf states that host US forces or infrastructure.
The Iranian government’s account matters for several reasons. High civilian death counts and the reported proportion of child and adolescent victims will intensify domestic outrage and strengthen Tehran’s case to international audiences that the campaign constitutes disproportionate or indiscriminate force. At the same time, the Iranian narrative of repeated strikes on humanitarian and civilian sites will complicate calls for de‑escalation and make diplomatic space narrower.
Independent verification of casualty numbers and target attribution remains limited in the fog of war, and rival narratives from Washington, Jerusalem and other international actors are likely to diverge sharply from Tehran’s account. Still, whether the strikes reflect intelligence failures, operational error or deliberate strategy, the reported pattern of hits on schools, hospitals and public venues raises acute legal and humanitarian questions and increases the risk of a protracted, regionally expansive conflict.