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civilian casualties
70+ House Democrats Demand Pentagon Answer for Iran Wedding Massacre
The September 1 strike, which killed five women and children and wounded more than 70 other Iranians, is but one of several civilian massacres during Trump's illegal war of choice.
Oct 14, 2026
More than 70 House Democrats on Tuesday sought answers and accountability from the Pentagon regarding a likely US strike on a September wedding gathering in southern Iran that killed five civilians—all women and children—and wounded over 70 others.
In a letter to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Reps. Yassamin Ansari (D-Ariz.), Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.), and Jason Crow (D-Colo.) led 74 lawmakers in demanding an explanation for the September 1 bombing in Kuhestak and details of what the Trump administration is doing to protect Iranian civilians.
“We demand urgent answers regarding the United States’ role in this strike, why the strike proceeded given the clear risk of significant civilian harm, and what steps the [US Department of Defense] is taking to prevent further civilian casualties in Iran,” the lawmakers wrote.
The strike occurred at approximately 9:30 pm local time while preparations were underway for the wedding of the daughter of a local fisher.
According to witnesses interviewed by The Associated Press, around 150 women and children were gathered at the Mallahi family compound. The celebration was following a regional tradition in which women and men gather separately. The bride and groom had not yet arrived, and the main celebration had not begun. A bomb struck the room where dinner would have been served.
Four initial fatalities—two women and two children—were identified by Iranian authorities and human rights groups: 50-year-old Zarkhatoun Taheri, 43-year-old Kolsoum Malahi Najandnia, 16-year-old Mohammad Mallahi, and 4-year-old Amir Mohammad Karimi. A fifth victim, 22-year-old woman Asiyeh Molainejad, died in a hospital on September 3.
Weapons experts concluded the blast was likely caused by a direct hit from a US munition. The Pentagon has not publicly accepted responsibility for the strike, which remains under investigation.
"This incident is regrettably among the latest in a string of civilian casualty incidents arising from the US-led war in Iran," the lawmakers wrote in their letter. "This includes a strike at the Shajareh Tayyebeh Elementary School in Minab, Iran, on the first day of the war that killed a reported 175 civilians, including 120 children."
The United Nations' Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Iran said it found “reasonable grounds" to believe that the Minab school strike constituted a war crime.
"While it has been reported that a preliminary investigation by the department found that the US military was responsible for the strike, over six months later the department has still not publicly acknowledged responsibility for the strike nor released the findings of its investigation," the lawmakers' letter notes.
"Similarly, reporting and independent analysis indicate that US forces were responsible for a strike at a youth sports hall in Lamerd, Iran, that killed 21 civilians, including 7 children, on February 28. While the department has denied responsibility, analysis by weapons experts found that the damage pattern is consistent with that of an American Precision Strike Missile," the lawmakers continued, referring to Lockheed Martin's next-generation surface-to-surface ballistic missile.
Hegseth, who advocates “maximum lethality” for US forces, has expressed disdain for what he called “stupid rules of engagement” designed to minimize civilian harm. He has overseen the dismantling of efforts meant to mitigate wartime harm to civilians—hundreds of thousands of whom have been killed in US-led wars during this century, according to experts.
“Maximum lethality," combined with AI-powered systems allowing for exponentially faster and more numerous target selection, has raised concerns that have been underscored by actions including US-backed Israeli massacres in Gaza and Lebanon, and US airstrikes in Iran, where tens of thousands of people have been killed or wounded during more than seven months of President Donald Trump's illegal war of choice, according to Iranian government figures.
The Washington, DC-based National Iranian American Council (NIAC) welcomed the lawmakers’ intervention, arguing that Iranian civilians must not be treated as expendable casualties of war.
“The lives of Iranian civilians cannot be treated as an acceptable cost of war,” NIAC president Jamal Abdi said in a statement. “These are families, children, and entire communities whose lives have been irreversibly altered by a military campaign that Congress never authorized."
“Credible allegations of unlawful attacks on civilians demand independent investigations, full public disclosure of the findings, and accountability for any violations of international humanitarian law,” Abdi added. “The Trump administration cannot be permitted to wage an unauthorized war in defiance of US and international law while evading responsibility for its devastating human consequences.”
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IDF Vets: Post-10/7 Rules Allowed Hundreds of Civilian Deaths to Kill Single Hamas Member
"You can't authorize the potential killing of 300 civilians... and still tell the public we did everything we could to avoid harming innocent people," said one veteran.
Oct 12, 2026
Former Israeli military and intelligence personnel affirmed that rules for targeting confirmed and alleged Hamas members in Gaza were dramatically loosened after the October 7, 2023 attack, allowing strikes expected to kill hundreds of Palestinian civilians to target even low-ranking members of the Palestinian resistance group, according to a report published Monday.
In a paywalled article published by Haaretz, Israel's oldest daily newspaper, Yaniv Kubovich gathered testimonies from former Israel Defense Forces intelligence personnel that add to the body of evidence from Israeli whistleblowers, military officials, and investigative journalists documenting how the IDF expanded its targeting practices during its devastating US-backed annihilation of Gaza, which has killed or wounded more than 250,000 Palestinians in the coastal exclave over the past three years.
One change described by some of those interviewed by Kubovich was "the opening of the intelligence apparatus to untrained personnel."
"People arrived at military intelligence who weren't from the unit, reservists who'd never even served in intelligence, brought in from all sorts of places," said one veteran, identified as "A."
"They sat in the Targeting Directorate looking for the most insignificant targets, the small fry, so they could kill them," A added. "Anyone displaying Hamas symbols on Facebook or identifying themselves as Hamas was marked as a target. Some were Hamas members, some were fighters too, but they really were small fry."
Another veteran, "D," who was assigned to a strike cell—units that coordinate drone and other aerial attacks—said: "Suddenly, the IDF was striking even the lowest of the low indiscriminately, and everyone had forgotten about conserving ammunition. We were striking Hamas drivers. That's how far it went."
Kubovich wrote that "a recurring theme in the accounts is the gap between a target's importance, the scale of the strike and the civilian toll deemed acceptable."
For example, on October 31, 2023, IDF warplanes dropped 2,000-pound "bunker-buster" bombs supplied by the United States on the densely populated Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza in order to kill one Hamas commander, Ibrahmi Biari.
"We knew Biari was underground, beneath several large buildings, but we couldn't pinpoint which building he was under," said D. "So they chose several buildings that were still occupied and decided to bring down all the buildings above the tunnel he was in. We didn't initiate an evacuation because it was important to kill him before he could get away."
A, who was also involved in the mission, said the decision to bomb the buildings was referred to the IDF chief of staff for approval, since intelligence officials estimated that there would be hundreds of civilian casualties. The IDF calculated that roughly 100 people would be killed or wounded in the proposed attack.
"We couldn't get any more intelligence to pinpoint his exact location," said veteran D. "They told us, 'He's killing soldiers right now. We have to strike him,' out of concern for the troops on the ground, and in the end the strike was approved. They really wanted to kill this guy."
Hamas said that 400 people were killed or wounded in the attack.
"Among other things, we relied on figures coming from Hamas, which we considered relatively plausible, even if they weren't 100% accurate," veteran A told Kubovich. "As time went on, we realized the death toll was around 250. I remember being stunned that we were bringing down several densely populated buildings, killing and injuring hundreds of people, to kill a battalion commander who, just a few weeks earlier, hadn't even been someone we were supposed to gather intelligence on."
The UK-based civilian casualty monitor Airwars said that at least 126 civilians, including 69 children, were killed in the attack, which wiped out whole families.
"You can't authorize the potential killing of 300 civilians for a battalion commander, or the killing of 20 civilians for every Hamas truck driver, and still tell the public we did everything we could to avoid harming innocent people," Nadav Weiman, executive director of the IDF veterans' group Breaking the Silence, told Kubovich.
Referring to the Jabalia massacre, D said: "I can't say this particular strike is what really messes with my head. What's much harder for me is the system of strike after strike after strike, with collateral damage running into dozens of people, sometimes hundreds. Being part of a system like that bothers me more than taking part in any particular strike."
The veterans' accounts raise further questions about Israel's repeated assertions that its military operations have been conducted in accordance with international humanitarian law, which requires parties in armed conflicts to distinguish between civilians and combatants and prohibits attacks expected to cause excessive civilian harm relative to the anticipated concrete and direct military advantage.
Those claims stand in stark contrast with statements by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other senior Israeli officials, who began calling for the genocidal destruction of Gaza and its 2.2 million people in the immediate aftermath of the Hamas-led attack of October 7, 2023.
Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant—his former defense minister who ordered the “complete siege” of Gaza, explaining that “we are fighting human animals, and we are acting accordingly"—are currently fugitives from the International Criminal Court in The Hague, where they are wanted for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes, including murder and forced starvation.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ), also in The Hague, is currently conducting a genocide case against Israel filed by South Africa and formally supported by more than 15 nations. While a ruling in the case isn’t expected until at least 2029, a United Nations commission of inquiry, the International Association of Genocide Scholars, and other experts—including many Israeli and international Jewish academics, jurists, human rights campaigners, and others—have already concluded that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.
The new Haaretz investigation adds to the body of reporting on Israel's loosened rules of engagement and their disastrous implications for Gaza civilians, including a December 2024 New York Times exposé involving interviews with over 100 IDF soldiers and veterans, Israeli officials, dozens of airstrike victims, and experts on the law and conduct of war.
Kubovich's revelations also come as the documentary NAZA, directed by Israeli journalists and filmmakers Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, brings testimony from Israeli military and intelligence insiders to international audiences. The film features 24 anonymized insiders describing the surveillance, artificial intelligence-assisted targeting, and military procedures used during the assault on Gaza.
IDF veteran testimonies are consistent with earlier investigations into the IDF's use of artificial intelligence to generate targets at extraordinary speed, often with limited human scrutiny.
In April 2024, Abraham reported for +972 Magazine and Local Call that the military used an AI system called Lavender to identify suspected Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad operatives. The investigation found that the IDF initially authorized officers to accept civilian casualty estimates of up to 15 or 20 people for each low-ranking alleged militant targeted, and more than 100 civilians for certain senior Hamas officials.
“The IDF bombed them in homes without hesitation, as a first option,” one intelligence officer told the outlets. “It's much easier to bomb a family's home. The system is built to look for them in these situations.”
The investigation also found that officers were permitted to rely on Lavender's recommendations without thoroughly checking the underlying intelligence.
Former IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi has also acknowledged the enormous human toll of the war.
“This is not a gentle war; we took the gloves off from the first minute,” Halevi said during a September 2025 speech to residents of Ein Habor, adding that “not once” has any legal authority “limited” his wartime conduct.
Implicitly confirming Gaza Health Ministry casualty figures—which then stood at around 220,000 Palestinians killed or wounded—Halevi said that “over 10%” of Gaza’s population of approximately 2.2 million had been "killed or injured” since October 2023.
In August 2025, Abraham and Emma Graham-Harrison, The Guardian's senior international affairs correspondent, revealed that classified IDF intelligence data suggested that 5 in 6 Palestinians, or 83% of people, killed by Israeli forces through the first 19 months of the war were civilians.
Current and former IDF troops have accused their own of deliberately shooting Palestinian civilians, including children, sometimes out of sheer boredom. Palestinian and international volunteer medical professionals have also described what they say is the deliberate shooting of Gazans, including children, more than 21,500 of whom have been killed by Israeli bombs and bullets—with more victims added to that grim total with every passing day.
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Human Rights Group Urges Congress to Block 'Illegal' Sale of 2,000-Pound Bombs to Israel
"A vote to let this sale proceed is a decision to help Israel commit more war crimes."
Sep 18, 2026
A human rights organization on Friday called on members of Congress to block the Trump administration's proposed $2.8 billion transfer of 40,000 2,000-pound bombs to Israel, warning that approving the massive weapons package could violate US law and expose lawmakers to potential liability for complicity in war crimes.
In a letter to congressional lawmakers, Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN) urged legislators to introduce joint resolutions of disapproval under the Arms Export Control Act (AECA) once the administration formally notifies Congress of the sale.
"Forty thousand of the bombs that flattened Gaza is not a defense package, it is a down payment on the next round of atrocities," DAWN executive director Omar Shakir said in a statement. "Every member of Congress now has the law and the evidence in front of them. A vote to let this sale proceed is a decision to help Israel commit more war crimes."
1/ Members of Congress should introduce and pass joint resolutions of disapproval under the Arms Export Control Act to block the Trump administration's proposed $2.8 billion transfer of 40,000 2,000-pound bombs to Israel, DAWN said today in a letter to every member of the Senate and House.
[image or embed]
— DAWN (@dawnmenaorg.bsky.social) September 18, 2026 at 9:39 AM
The proposed package includes 20,000 MK-84 general-purpose bombs and 20,000 BLU-117s, along with 20,000 I-2000 penetrator warheads, according to reporting by The Washington Post. The weapons would be purchased largely through Foreign Military Financing, meaning US taxpayers would pay for Israel's acquisition of the munitions.
The MK-84 is among the largest conventional bombs in the US arsenal. The Post reported that its blast can propel metal fragments thousands of feet, penetrate thick concrete and metal, and create large craters.
"Munitions experts [said] that US forces almost never drop bombs of this size in populated areas," DAWN wrote in its letter. "Israel has used them hundreds of times in Gaza and Lebanon. The Biden administration paused a shipment of these bombs in May 2024 precisely because of the risk of mass casualties in Rafah; President [Donald] Trump released it within days of taking office."
Loosened rules of engagement implemented by the Israel Defense Forces following the Hamas-led attack of October 2023, combined with the IDF's use of artificial intelligence technology to select targets far more rapidly than humans, resulted in a staggering loss of civilian life in Gaza when 2,000- and 1,000-pound bombs were dropped.
"Israel's assault has killed more than 73,000 Palestinians in Gaza, including more than 21,000 children, and the killing has not stopped," DAWN said on Friday, adding that the United Nations Children's Fund "said last month that at least 300 children had reportedly been killed since the October 2025 ceasefire, an average of one child every day."
DAWN argued that the proposed transfer would violate multiple US laws, including provisions of the AECA and Foreign Assistance Act governing how American weapons may be provided and prohibiting assistance to governments engaged in consistent patterns of gross human rights violations. The organization also invoked the Leahy Laws, which prohibit certain assistance to foreign military units credibly implicated in gross human rights abuses.
The group further warned that knowingly providing weapons that are subsequently used to commit war crimes could also be "illegal" under the Rome Statute governing the International Criminal Court (ICC). Although Israel and the US are not signatories to the Rome Statute, the treaty stipulates that people from nonsignatory nations who commit crimes in states that are party to the treaty—as Palestine is—can be held criminally accountable for their acts.
The ICC has issued warrants for the arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza, including murder and forced starvation. The Hague-based court also ordered the arrest of three senior Hamas leaders; all three were extrajudicially assassinated by Israel.
The proposed sale has already encountered some congressional resistance. Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY), the ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, announced Wednesday that he would not clear the transfer, citing the absence of sufficient assurances that the weapons would be used consistently with US and international law and concerns about civilian protection in Gaza and Lebanon. Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) has also vowed to block the sale in the upper chamber.
However, DAWN cautioned that a congressional hold is not necessarily sufficient to stop the transfer. The organization noted that the Trump administration has previously invoked emergency authorities to bypass congressional review of arms sales to Israel.
Under the AECA, Congress can attempt to block a major arms transfer through a joint resolution of disapproval. DAWN is urging lawmakers to bring such resolutions to recorded votes in both chambers and to hold public hearings examining the administration's use of emergency authorities to circumvent congressional oversight.
"The administration is betting that Congress will do what it always does: complain, then look away," DAWN advocacy director Raed Jarrar said on Friday. "Congress should show the administration that it's no longer the rubber stamp it long has been on arms to Israel and block this sale."
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Report Details 500+ Yemeni Civilian Casualties From 2023-25 US Airstrikes
"The so-called 'War on Terror' never ended in Yemen," said Costs of War Project director Stephanie Savell. "This report will allow people to hold the US government accountable for the deaths and destruction it has caused."
Sep 10, 2026
A report released Thursday examines the more than 500 Yemeni civilians its authors said were killed or wounded by US airstrikes in the Middle East nation during a recent 17-month period amid the open-ended so-called "War on Terror" that has left nearly one million people dead in around half a dozen nations over the past 25 years.
The report—authored by the Yemen-based group Mwatana for Human Rights and published by the Costs of War Project at Brown University's Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs—documents 46 US airstrikes that took place between December 2023 and May 2025 that caused at least 576 civilian casualties, including 213 deaths and 363 injuries. Among the casualties were at least 50 children and 25 women.
"The so-called 'War on Terror' never ended in Yemen," Costs of War Project director Stephanie Savell contended.
"It's important that we continue to account for the civilian lives lost, harmed, and disrupted in Yemen and other US war zones," she added. "This report will allow people to hold the US government accountable for the deaths and destruction it has caused in Yemen in support of the Israeli government's wars since 2023."
The overwhelming majority of the casualties covered by the publication occurred during President Donald Trump’s 2025 "Operation Rough Rider" campaign. Mwatana estimates that the operation killed 208 civilians and wounded 341, while the Pentagon has acknowledged a smaller toll of 153 killed and 243 wounded.
Seven of the 46 strikes took place between December of 2023 and January of 2025 during former President Joe Biden's "Operation Prosperity Guardian," a military campaign that came amid Houthi rebel attacks on shipping lanes in the Red Sea and the Bab al-Mandab Strait during Israel's genocidal war on Gaza.
Among the deadliest attacks covered by the report was the April 2025 bombardment of Ras Isa oil port ordered by Trump, in which US strikes killed scores of people and wounded more than 150 others. Human Rights Watch called the bombing an “apparent war crime,” saying the destruction of the civilian oil facility also threatened vital fuel supplies in a country already devastated by years of war and humanitarian crisis.
The campaign also included the April 28 bombing of a detention center in Saada while jailed African migrants were sleeping. Amnesty International has called for a war crimes investigation into that attack, in which scores of migrants were killed.
Mwatana researchers conducted site visits and 59 interviews with survivors, relatives, eyewitnesses, first responders, and other sources for the new report.
"The first strike hit while we were in deep sleep. I could not believe what I saw—30 of my fellow detainees died; their bodies were charred, and the smell of burned flesh filled the air," one 25-year-old Ethiopian survivor of the Saada attack recounted. "The place was crowded with bodies, while others were screaming and calling for help and rescue... we could do nothing for them."
In addition to physical harm, survivors described the deep psychological trauma suffered by victims. One mother said her 8-year-old son Taha "saw his father after he was hit by shrapnel—how he was bleeding, and how his intestines were coming out."
"His father was screaming: ‘Run… leave me and run before the American aircraft strikes again and finishes me off,'" she continued. "Taha still cannot sleep; when he does, he wakes up terrified. Whenever he hears thunder or any loud noise, he runs in fear, his whole body trembling."
Overall, US strikes covered by the report "hit civilian structures such as homes, shops, farms, residential neighborhoods, and infrastructure," the publication notes, adding that airstrikes "also caused severe damage to infrastructure and critical facilities, compounding the humanitarian suffering of local populations by striking essential service facilities, particularly in rural areas that already face acute shortages of clean water, electricity, and health services."
"Given Yemen’s economic deterioration and the catastrophic humanitarian situation produced by the armed conflict that has been ongoing since September 2014, it is likely that the US strikes expanded the cycle of poverty in Yemen by increasing unemployment and multiplying the number of households that lost breadwinners and sources of income," the report adds.
Hundreds of thousands of Yemenis have died during the civil war that began in 2014, with international experts attributing more than 150,000 Yemeni deaths to a US-backed, Saudi-led bombing campaign and blockade. According to the UK-based casualty monitor Airwars, an estimated 445-643 Yemeni civilians have been killed by US forces during the George W. Bush, Obama, Trump, and Biden administrations.
The Costs of War Project says that in the first two decades following the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, "between 363,939 and 387,072 civilians were killed by multiple warring parties in post-9/11 war zones, including 12,690 civilians in Yemen."
Mwatana for Human Rights chair Radhya Al-Mutawakel said Thursday that "the losses caused by US airstrikes against civilians cannot be regarded as temporary harm that ends when military operations cease. Civilians who have lost loved ones, homes, or sources of income continue to bear the consequences of these attacks, amid economic and humanitarian conditions that do not provide them with even the minimum capacity to recover.”
"Protecting civilians is not limited to avoiding killing or injuring them; it also includes respecting civilian objects and livelihoods," Al-Mutawakel added. "The United States must assume its legal and moral responsibility to recognize the civilian victims of its military operations in Yemen, provide them with redress and reparation, and hold accountable those responsible for the violations inflicted upon them.”
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Vance Says US 'Never Targets Civilians'—But Data From First Phase of Iran War Tells a Different Story
During the war's first 40 days, 77% of US attacks involved damage to civilian infrastructure or harm to civilians.
Sep 04, 2026
Following the US bombing of a wedding party in Iran earlier this week that killed at least five people—including two children—and left dozens more wounded, Trump administration officials repeated the mantra that the US military "never targets civilians."
In the days since the strike in the small southern town of Kuhestak, an analysis by Reuters found that the bombing was likely a direct hit by a US munition.
During a White House press briefing on Thursday following the report, Vice President JD Vance said the US was investigating the attack: “We’re investigating it because obviously we care," he said. "We want to know."
But, questioned about US responsibility, he reiterated: "What I can say with 100% confidence is that unlike the [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps], the United States never targets civilians in combat. We never will do that. We never have done that. And unfortunately, obviously, sometimes things happen."
He added: "And if we do make mistakes, again, this is a big difference between us and Iran. When our military makes mistakes, they learn from them to try to get better from them. So we’re investigating it very fully.”
The comments raised eyebrows immediately: The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) has documented that between February 28, when President Donald Trump launched the war, and April 7, when a ceasefire agreement was reached, at least 1,701 civilians were killed, including at least 307 children, and 714 more people have been killed who could not be classified as either military or civilians.
The first phase of the war brought several examples of mass civilian casualty events, including the double-tap bombing of an elementary school in Minab on the war's first day, which killed at least 150 children and teachers, and precision missile strikes on a sports hall and surrounding residential areas in Lamerd, which killed at least 21 civilians, including at least seven children.
Trump administration officials have brushed these attacks off as unfortunate mistakes and denied allegations that civilians were being targeted.
In the case of Minab, the administration has still never formally accepted responsibility, although an internal Pentagon assessment concluded that US forces were "likely" responsible, and several independent investigations have presented evidence demonstrating US responsibility.
But while intent remains an open question about these specific incidents, data from the first phase of the war show that the overwhelming bulk of incidents involved the targeting of nonmilitary infrastructure.
A May investigation by HRANA found that over the war's first 40 days, 77% of the 6,324 verified incidents it documented involved either civilian harm or damage to civilian objects. This included:
- 108 educational facilities;
- 50 healthcare facilities;
- 122 cultural and religious sites;
- 381 industrial and commercial facilities;
- 173 electricity generation and distribution sites; and
- 191 judicial and law enforcement facilities.
The group pointed to "several patterns that raise serious concerns under international humanitarian law," including "apparent failures in target verification, use of artificial intelligence with minimal human oversight, inadequate and inaccessible warnings, the use of large explosive weapons in populated areas, repeated or 'double-tap' strikes, [and] attacks targeting widespread civilian infrastructure."
During that same period, Iranian attacks across Israel and US-allied nations in the Middle East killed at least 36 civilians, according to a country-by-country tally from Reuters on April 7, with additional fatalities in Gulf countries whose civilian or military status is not always specified.
Trump has regularly made threats to rain down mass destruction upon Iran, including threatening that "a whole civilization will die" while promising to destroy "every" bridge and power plant in the country.
Wes J. Bryant, who served as the Pentagon’s chief of civilian harm assessments and now works as a war crimes analyst, rejected the Trump administration's contention that civilian casualties in the war have been the result of mere mistakes, saying they were instead the result of US forces "recklessly and negligently endangering and killing civilians."
"Is the US intentionally targeting civilians in Iran?" Bryant told Al Jazeera. "It is."
"I can tell you from experience, every single target location is recorded at multiple levels throughout the chain of command," he said, adding that in this week's wedding attack and others like the attack on the Minab school, the military would have been able “to report within hours” if a school or wedding was struck.
The anti-war activist group CodePink noted that the bombing of weddings by US forces long predates this week's attack, citing at least 10 other cases since 2001 in which wedding parties have been bombed, leading to dozens of casualties in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Yemen.
Pointing out that the wedding attack used three Boeing-produced missiles that the company markets as the "most accurate" in the US Navy's arsenal, Danaka Katovich, the national codirector of CodePink, said, "The Trump administration did not do this by accident."
"Even if they say they're 'investigating that'... like they did with the Minab school bombing, they are in a desperate situation," she said. "They are not winning the war, and they are running out of munitions, and they have no public support. They are resorting to tactics that attempt to inflict mass civilian harm."
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US Strike on Iran Kills 2-Year-Old Child and Family, Leaves Two Other Kids Beneath Rubble
Iran has reported that at least 383 children, including seven infants, had been killed in the US-Israeli war there, prior to the resumption of attacks this month.
Jul 30, 2026
A family of three, including their 2-year-old child, were killed by US strikes against a residential building in Iran's Qeshm City, according to reports from Iranian media on Thursday.
Videos posted by the official IRNA news agency showed rescue teams searching through rubble for survivors. Two other children, ages 7 and 9, were found wounded in the wreckage and have been transported to the hospital, according to the agency.
The US attack on the building in the neighborhood of Chah Tangu was one of several launched against residential areas across Qeshm Island in the Persian Gulf overnight in what US Central Command (CENTCOM) said were dozens of strikes on Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) sites across the country.
The IRGC said that it would respond to Thursday's strikes by hitting back against the “aggressor." Iranian strikes on sites in Kuwait and Jordan followed shortly after, leading to the death of a worker in a Chinese-owned building in Kuwait. Iran also claimed that its attacks destroyed US aircraft in Jordan, which has not been confirmed.
The wave of US attacks came after Trump vowed on Wednesday to "beat the fucking shit out of" Iran after it fired ballistic missiles toward US troops in Jordan, the first such strike since a brief bombing pause over the weekend. The US also partnered with Saudi Arabia to carry out attacks on Iran-backed militias in Iraq, which reportedly killed 20 fighters and six Iranian advisers.
In a statement on Thursday, CENTCOM said it had "successfully completed a heavy wave of strikes" against Iran "in response to yesterday’s attempted missile attacks on US forces." It did not specify the strategic reason for the strikes on Qeshm or acknowledge the reported civilian casualties.
According to the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), at least 254 children have been killed in Iran since the US and Israel launched the war on February 28, among more than 1,700 total civilians.
Iran has reported that at least 383 children, including seven infants, had been killed over the course of the war, prior to the resumption of attacks in July. With Thursday’s attacks, at least three more children have been killed since the conflict resumed this month.
Many of those casualties include at least 123 children killed by US strikes on the Shajareh Tayyebeh elementary school in Minab on the first day of the war. Earlier this month, Trump declined to release the findings of a Pentagon investigation into the massacre, saying it would be impossible to ever determine who was at fault.
Since restarting the war earlier this month, the US has focused its attacks on southern Iran in areas near the Strait of Hormuz, where Iran has once again functionally blocked travel, despite US demands for unrestricted travel through the waterway, which carried around a fifth of the global oil supply before the war.
Trump's continued escalation comes as Americans are overwhelmingly skeptical of the war. A CNN poll released Wednesday showed that 67% of Americans believe Trump's military actions have "hurt the US" by causing oil prices to spike. Nearly three-quarters of Americans believe Trump does not “have a clear plan for handling the situation in Iran,” according to the poll.
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'Nowhere Is Safe': Israel Kills Gaza Families and Bombs Hospital Despite Ceasefire
"I don't feel like there is a ceasefire at all," said a man who witnessed an Israeli missile attack on a hospital.
Jul 21, 2026
Palestinian officials said an Israel Defense Forces drone strike burned a family of six alive in their Gaza City home on Tuesday, a bombing that followed the massacre of another Palestinian family over the weekend and other attacks—including one on a hospital—as the Israeli genocide continues amid a nominal ceasefire.
The Palestinian Red Crescent Society said that rescue workers initially recovered the charred bodies of a mother, later identified as Salsabeel el-Masri, and her four children from their home in the Sabra neighborhood of Gaza City. Husband and father Firas el-Masri was later confirmed killed in the same strike.
The couple's three daughters and son—Faryal, Salma, Amira, and Naeem—ranged in age from 6 to 13.
(Photo by el-Masri family/X)
At least some members of the family—who were sleeping when their home was bombed—were apparently not killed by the blast.
"They were all burned so much that our crews couldn't reach them," said Palestinian Civil Defense spokesperson Mahmoud Basal. "They were screaming and begging us to get them before they were martyred, but all attempts failed."
Video recordings of the airstrike's aftermath show first responders desperately trying to extinguish the blaze caused by the attack and retrieving the burnt victims' bodies.
Ahmed el-Masri told the Emirati newspaper The National that his brother's "entire family was wiped out from the civil registry."
"Martyred child Ameera Al-Masri, a charred corpse"
Today, from Gaza City, Israel has wiped out the Al-Masri family in a targeted airstrike on their flat. pic.twitter.com/XmLL3Rde0M
— Abubaker Abed (@AbubakerAbedW) July 21, 2026
The el-Masri family is one of approximately 2,700 erased from the registry since Israel launched its war on Gaza in retaliation for the Hamas-led attack of October 7, 2023, according to an Al Jazeera analysis published in January.
The Israel Defense Forces confirmed the bombing, claiming the strike was targeting a Hamas member. The IDF dramatically loosened its rules of engagement following the October 7 attack, effectively allowing an unlimited number of civilians to be killed when targeting a single Hamas member, no matter how low-ranking.
Reuters reported at least six more Palestinians were killed by Israeli strikes later on Tuesday, including one targeting a vehicle in the central Gaza Strip.
On Monday, an IDF missile attack on the al-Yemen al-Saeed Hospital in northern Gaza's Jabalia refugee camp killed at least two people and wounded 16 others, including women and children.
“The children were having fun and playing football, and suddenly they started screaming,” eyewitness Youssef Akasha told Drop Site News contributor Mohamed Ahmed. “We found many children lying on the ground, women screaming, and young men running to rescue the wounded."
Graphic video footage shows children, including infants, being treated for shrapnel embedded in their bodies.
Israel's attack on the el-Masri family followed a Saturday IDF airstrike on the home of the Nasman family in the al-Nasser neighborhood of Gaza City that killed five people. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that Adham Nasman, 42; his wife, Marwa, 40; and three of their children—Arwa, 8, Ibrahim, 16, and Yahya, 18—were killed, and that Adham was apparently the intended target.
The couple's 13-year-old son, also named Adham, was not home at the time of the strike. Video footage published by photojournalist Nahed Hajjaj shows the grieving boy beside the bodies of his slain family.
Ayham Nasman, the sole survivor of his immediate family, returned to find his father, mother, and three siblings killed after an Israeli strike hit their residential apartment in Gaza's Al-Nasr neighborhood.
Ayham survived because he was not inside the apartment when it was… pic.twitter.com/86Co3JlI4r
— Middle East Eye (@MiddleEastEye) July 19, 2026
In another massacre on Saturday, an Israeli drone bombed a funeral in the Nuseirat refugee camp for a man who was allegedly a member of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, who had been killed earlier the same day in another IDF strike. Eight people were killed and 20 others wounded in the second attack, according to Palestinian, Israeli, and international media reports.
Israel's US-backed assault on Gaza has left more than 250,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing since October 2023 and around 2 million people forcibly displaced, starved, or sickened. Over 21,500 children—1,022 of them babies—are among the more than 73,000 Palestinians killed by Israeli forces during the war that scholars, jurists, human rights groups, a panel of United Nations experts, and others say is a genocide.
Israel is facing a genocide case filed by South Africa at the International Court of Justice and supported by nearly 20 nations, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant—his former defense minister who ordered the "complete siege" on Gaza that fueled famine and disease—are wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes, including murder and forced starvation.
The IDF's continued attacks come despite a US-backed ceasefire that went into effect last October. Since then, more than 1,160 Palestinians—most of them civilians—have been killed and over 3,750 others wounded by Israeli forces, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
“Nine months after the announcement of a ceasefire, still nowhere is safe for Palestinians in Gaza,” UN human rights spokesperson Thameen Al-Kheetan told reporters in Geneva on Tuesday. "The killing of civilians in these attacks raises concerns of continuing violations of international humanitarian law, war crimes and other possible atrocity crimes in Gaza. Under international law, deliberately attacking civilians is a war crime."
Akasha, who witnessed the Jabalia hospital bombing, told Drop Site News, “I don’t feel like there is a ceasefire at all."
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UN Chief Says Civilians 'Must Be Protected' as Pakistani Strikes Kill Dozens of Afghans
Women and children were reportedly among the at least 28 civilians killed and 49 others wounded on Sunday by airstrikes targeting Pakistani Taliban fighters in Afghanistan's Paktia, Paktika, and Kunar provinces.
Jun 29, 2026
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres on Monday called for “an immediate cessation of hostilities and the protection of civilians” after Pakistani airstrikes killed and wounded scores of Afghans, including women and children.
Pakistani forces bombed targets in Afghanistan's Paktia, Paktika, and Kunar provinces and launched a ground invasion of the neighboring nation.
The attacks—which Afghanistan's Taliban government called "cowardly" and an "atrocity"—reportedly killed at least 28 civilians and wounded 49 others.
"We call on all parties to uphold their obligations under international humanitarian law and continue to stress that civilians and civilian infrastructure must be protected at all times," Guterres said in a statement read in New York by his spokesperson, Stéphane Dujarric.
Dujarric also said that the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) “just confirmed that many civilians were killed and injured in these airstrikes carried out by Pakistan," and that “humanitarian colleagues tell us that the latest attacks have also reportedly triggered displacement, and humanitarian partners on the ground are assessing needs and preparing to provide emergency assistance.”
Paktia elder Adam Khan told Agence France-Presse that those killed in one of the strikes "were innocent civilians, including children, elderly people, and women" sleeping in a house.
Pakistani officials say the military operations are aimed at militant groups that it says operate from Afghan territory and launch attacks into Pakistan, not at Afghanistan's government. Islamabad accuses Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan—also known as the Pakistani Taliban—and Jamaat-ul-Ahrar of having recently attacked Pakistani security forces and civilians.
Last October, Pakistan and Afghanistan agreed to a now-imploded ceasefire after weeks of border clashes that killed dozens of civilians and wounded hundreds more.
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Israel to Blame for 56% of 22,600+ Civilians Killed by Explosive Weapons Globally Last Year
"What is particularly alarming is that this harm has become persistent across conflicts worldwide, risking the normalization of civilian suffering on a massive scale," said the report's lead author.
Jun 10, 2026
While the overall number of civilians killed by explosive weapons decreased by 21% last year, largely due to Israel scaling back attacks on the Gaza Strip and Lebanon in response to ceasefire deals, "the majority—56%—of all global civilian fatalities in 2025 could be attributed to Israeli armed forces, most of which occurred in Palestine," according to an annual report released Wednesday.
The report is the latest publication from the Explosive Weapons Monitor, a research initiative of the International Network of Explosive Weapons, whose members include nongovernmental organizations around the world such as Action on Armed Violence, Center for Civilians in Conflict, Human Rights Watch, Humanity & Inclusion (HI), PAX, and Save the Children.
Based on data from Armed Conflict Location & Event Data as well as Insecurity Insight, the monitor found that there were at least 22,616 civilian fatalities from explosive weapons across 65 countries and territories last year.
In addition to Lebanon and Palestine, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Iran, Iraq, Myanmar, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Ukraine, and Yemen were "heavily impacted," the publication says. Countries' armed forces were responsible for the vast majority—85%—of all incidents that reportedly affected civilians or civilian infrastructure last year.
"The number of attacks in which explosive weapons affected humanitarian aid operations, aid workers, and camps increased by 52%," to 2,541, last year—and while they were documented in 17 countries and territories, "about 90% of all incidents were recorded in Palestine," the report notes.
Attacks on education increased by 64%, to 1,416; they occurred in 27 places, but were most common in Myanmar, Palestine, and Ukraine. The report also highlights continued attacks on healthcare facilities and workers (1,272 incidents in 22 places), and on food and water systems (1,082 incidents in 15 places).
"Every destroyed school, hospital, market, water system, or humanitarian convoy represents far more than damaged infrastructure—it represents opportunities lost, futures disrupted, and communities pushed further from recovery," said Alma Taslidžan, HI's disarmament advocacy manager, in a statement.
"Long after the explosions end, civilians continue to live with the consequences of disrupted healthcare, interrupted education, damaged livelihoods, and the daily challenge of rebuilding their lives," Taslidžan emphasized. "For many, the consequences of explosive weapons become part of everyday life and suffering for years to come."
Explore the report's data and view country-specific analysis in a new interactive dashboard:➡️ explosiveweaponsmonitor.org/global-figur...
[image or embed]
— Explosive Weapons Monitor (@weaponsmonitor.bsky.social) June 10, 2026 at 8:29 AM
The report argues that "it remains a critical humanitarian priority" to bring the 2022 Political Declaration on Strengthening the Protection of Civilians from the Humanitarian Consequences Arising From the Use of Explosive Weapons in Populated Areas into greater effect.
The publication also calls out eight countries—Cambodia, Kenya, Morocco, Nigeria, Somalia, South Korea, Turkey, and the United States—that endorsed the declaration but whose armed forces reportedly used explosive weapons that caused civilian harm in 2025.
"The devastating impact of explosive weapons on civilians is both foreseeable and preventable. Yet across numerous conflicts, their continued use has entrenched a pattern of civilian harm that is increasingly treated as routine rather than exceptional," said Katherine Young, the report's lead author and the monitor's research and monitoring manager, in a statement.
"When explosive weapons are used in populated areas, civilians suffer," Young stressed. "What is particularly alarming is that this harm has become persistent across conflicts worldwide, risking the normalization of civilian suffering on a massive scale."
The release of the report comes amid renewed Israeli attacks on Lebanon—which intensified after the United States and Israel launched an illegal war on Iran in February, and have continued despite a new ceasefire agreed to in April—as well as on Palestinians in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
"This weekend, eight children were reported killed and a further 17 injured in five different locations in the Gaza Strip, while in the West Bank, a 7-month-old boy died after being shot by Israeli forces in the Tel Rumeida area of Hebron," said Edouard Beigbeder, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) regional director for the Middle East and North Africa, on Wednesday.
"We cannot let this become the new normal—children losing their lives to violence should cause global outrage and must be condemned at every level," he continued. "UNICEF calls on the Israeli authorities to take decisive action to protect all Palestinian children. Authorities must ensure transparent, credible, and robust investigations, as well as accountability whenever children are killed or maimed."
Since the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, Israeli forces have slaughtered at least 72,991 Palestinians in Gaza—an assault widely condemned as genocide. That includes 981 people killed since the ceasefire reached last October, according to local health officials. Israeli attacks on Lebanon have left thousands more dead, including at least 3,666 since early March, per the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health.
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'Have You Investigated Those Claims' of Civilians Killed by US in Iran? CENTCOM Chief: 'We Have Not'
With more than 1,700 civilians, including hundreds of children, reportedly killed during US-Israeli bombarding of Iran, one advocacy group said that "more pressure and oversight on these war crimes is urgently needed."
May 14, 2026
While claiming that the subject of civilian casualties is his “passion” before US lawmakers during a US Senate hearing on Thursday, the head of US Central Command was asked directly if he and his team had investigated a litany of reports about civilians being killed or maimed by US bombs in Iran. His answer? No.
Commander Adm. Brad Cooper appeared before the Senate Armed Services Committee for a hearing on US Central Command (CENTCOM) and US Africa Command (AFRICOM) concerning the Trump administration's request for $1.5 trillion in military spending authorization for 2027.
During the questioning, Cooper refuted reports that US-Israeli airstrikes have hit 22 schools in Iran and raised eyebrows for his answers regarding cuts to Pentagon programs meant to mitigate harm to noncombatants.
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY)—who last month led the introduction of a defeated war powers resolution aimed at stopping President Donald Trump's "reckless" attack on Iran—pressed Cooper about US conduct in the war. She cited New York Times reporting that 22 schools and 17 healthcare facilities have been destroyed or damaged since Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu launched the illegal war of choice on February 28.
"We have regulations. We have the law of war. We have human rights obligations. We have our own targeting requirements to avoid civilian harm and death," Gillibrand said. "Have you been implementing all the laws that are required under current law to minimize civilian death?"
.@SenGillibrand presses CENTCOM Commander Cooper on the bombing of schools and hospitals in Iran.
Cooper’s response is woefully insufficient, denying that more than one such bombing took place, despite widespread documentation of bombings destroying protected civilian sites. pic.twitter.com/8gy6Zx6eg2
— NIAC (@NIACouncil) May 14, 2026
"We follow all the procedures and have gone above and beyond to, in my case, personally warn the Iranian people of several instances during conflict where they were being potentially used as human targets," the admiral said.
Asked by Gillibrand "how did we then bomb 22 schools," Cooper countered that "there is no indication that we have that has been corroborated."
The Iranian Red Crescent Society claimed last month that at least 60 students and 10 staff members were killed in US-Israeli attacks on 32 universities and 857 schools.
Pressed by the senator on "how many schools" the US has bombed, Cooper retorted that "there is one active civilian casualty investigation from the 13,629 munitions" used to attack Iran.
The admiral was presumably referring to the February 28 cruise missile strike on the Shajareh Tayyebeh girls’ elementary school in Minab, which killed 156 students and staff and wounded 95 others. Trump and senior administration officials initially denied responsibility for the massacre, but physical evidence, journalistic investigations, and a preliminary Pentagon probe indicate US culpability.
A skeptical Gillibrand repeated her question about 22 schools "and multiple hospitals" being bombed.
"There's no way that we can corroborate that," Cooper replied. "No indication of that whatsoever."
The senator asked for clarification: "There's no way you can corroborate, or no indication of it? Which one?"
Cooper answered, "No indication."
"Well, the indication is what's publicly available," Gillibrand fired back. "There is indication. Have you investigated those claims?"
The admiral replied, "We have not."
Gillibrand continued: "Why have you not? If this is a passion of yours, if you believe that the civilian casualties are not consistent with the law of war and not consistent with human rights obligations... why have you not investigated those allegations when they're publicly being made on the cover of The New York Times?"
The senator then asked how Cooper has "managed the 90% cut to the personnel who are supposed to avoid civilian targets," a reference to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's gutting of the Biden-era Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response Action Plan (CHMR-AP), which laid out a series of policy steps aimed at preventing and responding to the death and injury of noncombatants.
The plan, which was implemented after US forces killed an estimated 432,000 civilians since late 2001 during the so-called War on Terror, was skeptically welcomed for its commitment to reducing harm to noncombatants. However, Hegseth said at the outset of the Iran War that US forces would not be bound by “stupid rules of engagement" and would instead prioritize “lethality."
The Pentagon eliminated the entire civilian harm office at Joint Special Operations Command, removed related specialists from target development teams, and slashed CENTCOM's civilian harm mitigation team from 10 people to just one full-time staffer.
Cooper told Gillibrand that he would be "happy to provide any report" on the matter.
Iranian officials and human rights groups say more than 1,700 Iranian civilians have been killed by US and Israeli attacks since February 28. US and Israeli use of artificial intelligence systems to select bombing targets exponentially faster than any person has also raised concerns regarding a lack of meaningful human oversight. One former IDF officer said AI enabled a “mass assassination factory” in Gaza, where more than 250,000 Palestinians have been killed or wounded by Israeli forces since the Hamas-led attack of October 7, 2023.
The National Iranian American Council (NIAC) said after the exchange with Gillibrand that "Cooper’s response is woefully insufficient, denying that more than one such bombing took place, despite widespread documentation of bombings destroying protected civilian sites."
"More than 1,700 civilians, including hundreds of children, were killed in the bombardment of Iran," NIAC added. "Dozens of schools and hospitals were damaged and destroyed by the dropping of massive bombs in urban areas. More pressure and oversight on these war crimes is urgently needed."
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