An 8-year-old girl who loved dancing in a red dress at her dentist’s office. A 28-year-old national equestrian champion. A young poet one week away from her 24th birthday. A graphic designer who worked at National Geographic. Grandparents in their 80s.
All are among the civilians killed during Israeli airstrikes on Iran.
Israel has said it does not target Iranian civilians, but hundreds have died in the violence. Every day since the war began, a new face, a new name, a new story of a life that ended violently and abruptly has emerged. The Ministry of Health has not updated casualty numbers since Sunday, when it said at least 224 people had been killed and nearly 2,000 injured, including women and children. Those figures are expected to grow in the coming days.
In interviews with more than 50 residents of Tehran, Shiraz, Isfahan, Ahvaz, Mashhad, Sanandaj, Amol, Ghazvin, Semnan, Karaj, Neishabour, and Tabriz, doctors, families and friends described the toll of the strikes. The New York Times also reviewed scores of videos, photos and testimonies documenting civilian casualties, injuries and the destruction of residential buildings.
The Israel Defense Forces have said the attacks on Iran are targeted assassinations of military commanders, government officials and nuclear scientists. But missiles and drones have also hit high-rise buildings and multistory apartment complexes where civilians also reside. Dr. Hossein Kermanpour, the spokesman for the Ministry of Health, said 90 percent of casualties were civilians, not military.
In Tehran, the frequency of the Israeli strikes has completely upended daily life. The constant thud of air defense systems, the loud boom of explosions and the wailing sirens of ambulances and fire trucks have replaced the sounds of a metropolis typically buzzing with traffic, street music and the Muslim call to prayer.
Photos and videos show rescue crews rummaging through piles of debris. A father clutches his small baby in a white onesie drenched in blood. A man bleeding from the head leans against a motorcycle as a passerby tends his wound. The body of a small child, covered in gray dust, peeks out from the rubble.
“There’s a lot of focus on the military targets but not much is being said about the many civilian casualties, in fact nothing is being said about them, which are much higher than the targeted killings,” said Jila Baniyagoub, a prominent journalist and women’s rights activist in Tehran.
Four physicians, including the director of a major hospital in Tehran, said that emergency rooms were overwhelmed. The Ministry of Health announced on Monday that all medical staff members around the country were required to remain in their posts because of the acute need.
“This is unlike anything we’ve experienced before,” said Ali, a 43-year-old engineer in Tehran and father of two small children who asked that his last name not be published for fear of retribution from Iranian officials for speaking publicly. He said deaths and casualties were hitting closer to home everyday and that a friend’s sister had been killed when a building collapsed on her after a targeted strike.
Parnia Abbasi, the poet, graduated from college with a degree in English and landed a coveted job at the National Bank of Iran, where her mother had spent her career as a bank clerk until retirement. Her father was a public-school teacher. Ms. Abbasi once spoke at a panel for young poets and told the audience that she looked “at all my life events as stories I could write.”
About six months ago, her parents realized a lifelong dream of purchasing a three-bedroom apartment in the Orkideh Complex, a compound of high-rise apartment buildings on Sattarkhan Street in central Tehran. On Friday morning, the building collapsed after it was hit by an Israeli missile.
The Abbasi family, including Parham, Ms. Abbasi’s younger brother, were killed.
“They had bought this house six or seven months ago under great financial pressure so that the children could have their own rooms. The love between this family was the envy of everyone. They were always together,” said Hassan Kamali, a relative in Tehran.
Tara Hajimiri, 8, loved folk dance and gymnastics. A video of her wearing a red dress as she danced her way into the chair at her dentist’s office went viral on social media. She and 60 residents were killed in a massive strike on an apartment building on Patrice Lumumba Street on Saturday.
Reza, a 59-year-old computer engineer, said that his aunt and uncle, a couple in their 80s, were killed in an airstrike while they were sleeping on Saturday night. The force of the explosion toppled the building, he said.
The man had Parkinson’s disease, said Reza. “It’s so sad that innocent civilians are being impacted by this war. They were loving grandparents.”
The damage to the building was so extensive that rescue workers have not yet retrieved the bodies. The family was informed to consider the couple dead. Reza said the couple’s adult children go to the site every day, waiting for the bodies to be pulled from the rubble.
Saleh Bayrami, a veteran graphic designer for magazines like National Geographic and media companies, was driving home from a meeting on Sunday. He stopped at a red light at Quds Square, near the bustling Tajrish market outside Tehran. An Israeli missile landed on a major sewage pipe in the square, exploded into a ball of fire and killed him, according to colleagues and news reports.
Ava Meshkatian, a colleague who sat next to him at work, wrote a tribute to Mr. Bayrami on her Instagram page, describing him as kind, friendly and always smiling. “We have to write these things for others to read. For others to know, God only knows how devastated I am,” she wrote.
Mehdi Poladvand, a 27-year-old member of a youth equestrian club and a national champion, spent the last day of his life on Friday at a racetrack in Karaj competing in a race.
Iranian news media described him as a rising talent who had won numerous championship titles in provincial competitions and national cups. He was killed along with his parents and sister when their apartment building was struck by an Israeli missile, his friend Arezou Malek, a fellow equestrian, told local Iranian media.
At cemeteries across Iran, somber funeral services are being held daily, sometimes as missiles fly overhead. The coffin of Niloufar Ghalehvand, 32, a Pilates instructor, was covered with the flag of Iran, according to videos shared on social media by the sporting club where she worked. A small crowd wearing black can be seen standing around the coffin.
“We will always remember you,” read a message from the sports club. “No to War.”
Farnaz Fassihi is the United Nations bureau chief for The Times, leading coverage of the organization. She also covers Iran and has written about conflict in the Middle East for 15 years.
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