The US war in Iran, joined by Israel, is in its third day, with no sign of slowing. On Monday, President Donald Trump estimated that it could last about four weeks — “and we’re a little ahead of schedule,” he said.
The civilians dying in Trump’s new war
What we know about the civilian death toll in the Middle East, briefly explained.
Cameron Peters is a staff editor at Vox.
Already, the US has accomplished some of its military objectives, including sinking part of Iran’s navy and striking Iranian ballistic missile and nuclear facilities. Israel, with targeting assistance from the US, also killed Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, on the war’s first day. In the process, at least six US servicemembers have been killed, and four more injured.
The conflict has also produced a substantial and growing civilian death toll, both in Iran and in Israel and the Gulf states that Iran has targeted with missile and drone strikes in retaliation.
The civilian death toll in Iran
One of the worst single incidents occurred shortly after the war began on Saturday morning, when a missile struck a girls’ elementary school in Minab, Iran. The strike reportedly killed at least 175 people, many of them children.
Iran’s six-day workweek, which begins on Saturday, means that the school was full of students when it was hit. According to CNN, classes had been canceled shortly before the deadly strike, but students had not yet had time to evacuate.
Much remains unclear about the attack, including whether it was launched by the US or Israel; CENTCOM, the US military command overseeing the Middle East, said in a statement on Saturday, “We are aware of reports concerning civilian harm resulting from ongoing military operations. We take these reports seriously and are looking into them.”
The death toll from the attack, which has continued to rise since the weekend, comes from Iranian health officials and has not been independently confirmed, but video of the aftermath has been verified by the New York Times and other outlets.
It is far from the only such incident: In Tehran, Iran’s capital, a high school was hit, reportedly killing at least two students. Multiple Tehran hospitals have also been damaged in strikes since Saturday, though there are no known deaths associated with those strikes.
All told, according to Iran’s Red Crescent, a humanitarian group, at least 555 people have been killed in Iran since the war began, though the breakdown of civilian versus military casualties is uncertain.
The Human Rights Activist News Agency, or HRANA, a US-based human rights monitor for Iran, reported a “minimum reliable estimate” of 133 civilian deaths on Saturday alone, with 200 more Iranian civilians injured.
As of Monday, those figures had grown substantially: According to HRANA, at least 742 civilians have now been killed in Iran, with nearly 1,000 injured and more than 600 deaths still under review.
Death tolls are likely to increase from early reports as groups like HRANA continue to document strikes inside Iran. As Al Jazeera reported Monday, citing Iranian news outlets, US and Israeli attacks have hit residential buildings in Tehran and other Iranian cities.
Casualties in the Gulf and Israel
Iran has responded to attacks by the US and Israel with missiles of its own, as well as drone strikes by Iran’s single-use Shahed drones against multiple countries in the Persian Gulf.
All told, according to Al Jazeera, Iran has struck at least nine countries: Bahrain, Cyprus, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, many of which are home to US military bases.
Relatively few of those attacks — more than 800 drones and nearly 400 missiles have been launched as of Sunday — have made it to their targets; the majority have been intercepted. However, some have, resulting in deaths in Israel, Kuwait, Bahrain, the UAE, and Oman and injuring many more.
Among countries targeted by Iran, the highest death toll has been in Israel, where a missile struck the city of Beit Shemesh, killing nine; a woman was also killed by shrapnel in Tel Aviv.
The civilian death toll on both sides of the Gulf is almost certain to grow as the conflict continues, particularly if Gulf nations begin to run short of US-supplied Patriot interceptors.
The open-ended nature of the conflict could also make things worse. As Robert A. Pape wrote for Vox on Sunday, the US won’t be able to bomb its way to a new government in Iran — but that doesn’t mean Trump isn’t going to try.
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