The US-Israeli bombing campaign in Iran that began on February 28 killed more than 3,000 Iranians, Iran’s forensic chief told Iranian media on Thursday, as US-Israeli attacks on the country appear to be paused.
The Iranian official, Abbas Masjedi, disclosed the figure at an event marking 40 days since the killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed on the first day of the war and has since been replaced by his son, Mojtaba Khamenei.
Masjedi said that about 40% of the dead require forensic identification before being returned to their families, and that some of the bodies haven’t been able to be identified due to the types of weapons “the enemy used in attacks on civilians.”
The US-Israeli bombing campaign had a devastating impact on civilians, with many strikes hitting civilian targets. Most notable was the US Tomahawk missile strike on an elementary school in Minab, southern Iran, on February 28, killing more than 100 girls and boys.
Masjedi didn’t provide a breakdown of the number of civilian deaths, but the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), a US-based and US-funded NGO that’s very critical of the Iranian government, said on Tuesday night that at least 1,701 civilians, including 254 children, were killed in the US-Israeli bombing campaign.
The HRANA said it also recorded the killing of 1,221 military personnel and another 714 deaths that it hasn’t classified as either civilian or military.
The Iranian Red Crescent Society (IRCS) has reported that a massive number of civilian buildings and homes were damaged by US-Israeli strikes. “In total, 125,392 civilian units (residential, commercial, etc.) suffered complete destruction to minor damage during the war,” the IRCS said on Thursday.
