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civilians
How Many People Have the US and Israel Killed in Iran?
The massacre at a school in the city of Minab is not an isolated case, but rather an example of broader brutality and also a window into how the US systematically downplays civilian death and suffering.
Apr 13, 2026
After the breakdown of talks in Pakistan, the ceasefire between the US and Iran is more fragile than ever, and now seems likely to give way to a new phase of the war. The ceasefire and talks have failed to end Israel’s devastating attacks on Lebanon or to negotiate international access to the Strait of Hormuz, now under Iran’s control.
The world must use this pause in the war to push for a permanent ceasefire and peace agreement, but we must also start to assess the true human cost of the war–something the US is always reluctant to do in its wars, from Vietnam to Iraq to Afghanistan. While we always know the exact number of Americans killed in these wars, we never have an accurate tally of how many people we have killed–not only because it is often hard to get the data, but also because the US systematically downplays civilian casualties and treats their lives as less valuable.
We saw this from the very first day of this war. The US carried out a double-tap strike on a girls’ elementary school in Minab, killing 175, mostly young girls. Trump’s response was to blame Iran: “In my opinion, based on what I’ve seen, that was done by Iran,” he said, and later suggested that Iran might have gotten hold of a Tomahawk missile and used it to kill its own people.
Minab is not an isolated case—it is a window into a much broader failure by the US government and media, as well as the Iranian government and international media, to honestly reveal the human toll of this 40-day war.
The Iran Health Ministry’s casualty figures have not been updated in any detail since March 29, when it put Iranian casualties at 2,076 killed and 26,500 wounded, and there is an obvious mismatch between these two numbers. The ratio between them is much higher than in other wars, or even when compared with the Israeli assault on Lebanon in this war, where Lebanon’s Health Ministry reported 1,830 people killed and 4.927 wounded by April 10, a ratio of 2.7 to 1 between the wounded and the dead.
For further comparison, UN figures for civilian casualties in the war in Ukraine are 15,172 and 41,378 wounded, which is also a ratio of 2.7 to 1. These are certainly under-estimates, like civilian casualty counts in every war, but the ratio between deaths and injuries is realistic, unlike that in Tehran’s casualty figures.
If the Iran Health Ministry’s casualty figures were accurate, it would mean that only one person is being killed for every 13 people wounded. But if the figure of 26,500 people wounded was accurate, and the ratio between dead and wounded was similar to what is found in other wars, we would expect that around 10,000 people have probably been killed.
Looking at other sources, the UK-based Iran International website, on March 31, reported Iranian military, militia and police casualties of 4,770 killed and 20,880 wounded, but did not divulge its sources.
Two human rights groups, HRANA and Hengaw, have also published mortality estimates. HRANA, based in Fairfax, Virginia, in the US, is partly funded by the US government, the aggressor in this war. So its data on war casualties are as suspect as its data for casualties during protests in Iran in December and January that the US used as a pretext for the war.
The other human rights group, Hengaw, is based in Norway and Iranian Kurdistan. It reports a total of at least 7,650 people killed by the time of the ceasefire on April 8, of whom 6,620 were military personnel and 1,030 were civilians.
If the Iranian government’s figure of 26,500 people wounded is correct, Hengaw’s count of 7,650 war deaths would amount to a ratio of 3.5 people wounded for each person killed, which would be closer to what one would expect by comparison with other wars.
But the Health Ministry’s figure of 26,500 wounded is also suspect. The Pentagon claims that US and Israeli airstrikes have hit more than 13,000 “targets,” so 26,500 injuries would amount to only two people wounded for each target attacked. This suggests that the count of 26,500 people wounded is itself an undercount, and that the true numbers of casualties in Iran, killed and wounded, military and civilian, are therefore likely to be much higher than any of the numbers reported so far.
While it is easy to understand why the US government doesn’t want to talk about casualties, it seems that the Iranian government doesn’t want to either. If, as we suspect, the true casualty figures are much higher than the health ministry has reported, it may be hiding and downplaying them to prevent panic among the population and keep up the country’s morale, especially in light of the recent large protests in the country. That could also explain why it has not updated its casualty report since March 29.
The fact that our government and institutional media downplay the importance of accurate casualty figures and make no effort to discover them only makes it more urgent to find them, as we and others have tried to do during previous US wars.
We would encourage all sides, and independent groups, to cooperate in efforts to accurately count the dead and wounded. Why does this matter? In an illegal war, every death is a crime, while every person killed or maimed is somebody’s husband, wife, father, mother, son or daughter. They should all still be alive and whole. The US armed forces should not be killing or wounding any of them. So some might ask what difference it makes whether they’ve killed 2,000 people, 7,000 or even 70,000.
We would say that it is precisely because each life is precious, and because the pain and horror each person suffers in these violent deaths and injuries is so unacceptable, that each one deserves to be counted and considered. Americans, and our neighbors around the world, need to fully grasp the scale of the mass murder that the US government is committing, so that we can all respond appropriately.
The fact that our government and institutional media downplay the importance of accurate casualty figures and make no effort to discover them only makes it more urgent to find them, as we and others have tried to do during previous US wars.
In 2006, three years into the extraordinarily violent US military occupation of Iraq, public health experts from Johns Hopkins University in the US and Mustansiriya University in Baghdad conducted the second of two epidemiological studies of mortality in Iraq since the US invasion.
The study was published in the Lancet medical journal, and it estimated that, during just the first three years of war and occupation in Iraq, they had caused about 650,000 deaths, including 600,000 violent killings. That was more than ten times higher than previously published figures, which were based on compilations of western news reports and reports from the occupation government’s health ministry.
The study’s results were disputed by those responsible for the war and the mass casualties it caused, including US President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
But leaked emails revealed that the British government’s chief scientific adviser described the study’s methodology as “close to best practice,” and its design as “robust.” Emails from panicking British officials asked, “Are we really sure the report is likely to be right? That is certainly what the brief implies,” and “…the survey methodology used here cannot be rubbished. It is a tried and tested way of measuring mortality in conflict zones.”
In 2015, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning groups Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) and International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) published a report titled Body Count: Casualty Figures After 10 Years of the War on Terror. In discussing the widely varying mortality estimates for the war in Iraq, the report noted, “Despite the furious criticism it attracted, most experts see the second Lancet study of October 2006 as the most solid estimate of the number of casualties, up to the period of its publication.”
No such comprehensive studies were ever conducted in Afghanistan. The UN published annual civilian casualty figures, but these were only compilations of civilian casualties confirmed by the UN Human Rights Office as it followed up on reports of war crimes and human rights violations reported to its office in Kabul, which excluded any deaths not reported to its office, or that it did not have time to fully investigate.
As is happening with the Iran Health Ministry reports today, the UN’s fragmentary reports were uncritically repeated by the world’s media as if they were realistic estimates of total war deaths in Afghanistan.
Finally, in 2019, after 18 years of war and military occupation, Fiona Frazer, the head of the UN Human Rights office in Kabul, admitted to the BBC that the UN’s reports were not providing a full picture of civilian casualties in Afghanistan.
“United Nations data strongly indicates that more civilians are killed or injured in Afghanistan due to armed conflict than anywhere else on Earth,” Frazer said, but then added, “Although the number of recorded civilian casualties are disturbingly high, due to rigorous methods of verification, the published figures almost certainly do not reflect the true scale of harm."
Hundreds of thousands of Afghans were also killed fighting as combatants on both sides in that war. The world’s media were surprised when President Ghani revealed in January 2019 that 45,000 Afghan government troops had been killed since he took office in September 2014. But the US relied on Afghans to fight other Afghans throughout its failed 20-year war in their country.
Whatever the result of the current ceasefire and negotiations, and for however long the US and Israel keep waging war on Iran, the people of the United States and the world must demand a complete and truthful accounting for the human costs of this war, for which Americans and their government bear the prime moral and legal responsibility. At best, that should include the same kind of independent, scientifically-based epidemiological study conducted in Iraq in 2006.
But the demand for accountability starts with a skeptical public and media who can tell the difference between partial, fragmentary casualty reports and serious estimates of total deaths in a violent war zone, and who care enough to want to know how many people their armed forces are really killing and maiming in this illegal war.
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'Nightmare for Civilians': Israel Inflicts 1,400+ Casualties on Lebanon War's Deadliest Day
"Civilians in Lebanon are already paying an unbearable price with children, health workers, and journalists amongst those killed—the latest attacks will only escalate this devastating human toll," said one campaigner.
Apr 09, 2026
Humanitarian campaigners, civil rights defenders, and progressive members of Congress were among those calling on the Trump administration to pressure Israel to stop bombing Lebanon after Israeli airstrikes killed or wounded more than 1,400 people—many of them civilians—on Wednesday.
In what Amnesty International called an "unprecedented escalation," the Israel Defense Forces said it carried out the “largest coordinated wave of strikes” of its renewed war on Hezbollah in Lebanon. Around 100 sites in the country were bombed in one 10-minute period alone in what the IDF dubbedr "Operation Eternal Darkness."
Lebanese officials said that at least 303 people were killed and 1,165 others wounded by Israeli strikes on Wednesday, the deadliest day of attacks since Israel resumed bombardment of Lebanon and likely since it started bombing its northern neighbor after the Hamas-led Palestinian attack of October 7, 2023.
While Lebanese authorities do not break down casualties according to combatant status, officials and residents of the capital city of Beirut said that civilians were the main victims of Wednesday's bombings, which targeted apartment towers and other civilian structures in numerous densely populated urban areas.
One witness, a woman named Fatima, told Amnesty International what she saw in the immediate aftermath of an IDF strike on a building across the street from her home in Beirut's Salim Salam neighborhood.
“It was apocalyptic," she said. "Bodies on the ground. Blood everywhere. I saw countless wounded adults and children. I walked further but it was the same scene in the other neighborhoods too. I did not know where to go. I just walked aimlessly trying to get as far as possible. It was a nightmare.”
Dr. Firass Abiad, a surgeon and wformer Lebanese health minister, told The Guardian that American University of Beirut Medical College, where he works, received about 70 patients at the same time, a situation he said was intentionally caused by Israel "to flood the health system."
“There was a 90-year-old who I just left a bit ago. He passed away from his wounds," he said. "There was nothing we could do. These are civilians who, without any warning, their whole apartment building was flattened. So you can imagine the severity of injuries that we’re getting.”
Shaden Fakih, a 24-year-old calisthenics trainer, described trying to find his friend who was inside a building when it was bombed. He couldn't locate his friend, but he was seen carrying an elderly woman from the rubble.
"There’s no Hezbollah here, the Israelis are just getting happy when they bomb people, it’s not about Hezbollah," Fakih said in an interview with The Guardian. “Just stop bombing us. If you want to kill Hezbollah, go for it, but don’t kill civilians, because you’re creating anger in us against Israel and we will have to act like Hezbollah just to defend our country. But I don’t want to do that, I just want to live in peace."
“It’s been the worst day since the war started," he added. "And what I’m most sad about is that my pretty Lebanon, our beautiful Lebanon, soon it will all be brought down to the ground.”
As Common Dreams reported, Israeli strikes have wiped out entire families in Lebanon and Iran. In Gaza, more than 2,700 families have been erased from the civil registry.
Responding to Wednesday's attacks, Amnesty International Middle East and North Africa regional director Heba Morayef said that “just hours after the world cautiously welcomed news of a US-Israeli ceasefire with Iran, in Lebanon the nightmare for civilians has become more terrifying."
“Even before today’s attack... more than 1,500 people had been killed and over a million people displaced from their homes across the country," Morayef continued, referring to Israel's bombardment of Lebanon after Hezbollah began launching rockets and drones southward in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza. Israel's genocidal assault on Gaza has left more than 250,000 Palestinians dead, injured, or missing.
"Civilians in Lebanon are already paying an unbearable price with children, health workers, and journalists amongst those killed—the latest attacks will only escalate this devastating human toll," Morayef added. "These attacks are a reminder that states must immediately halt the transfer of arms and weapons to Israel given the overriding risk that they will be used to commit serious violations of international humanitarian law."
The Washington, DC-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said in a statement late Wednesday, “Once again, Israel’s genocidal government is trying to derail a ceasefire and ensure peace does not succeed by slaughtering innocent civilians."
"The Trump administration must stop them from carrying out this brutal plan," the group added. "Israel has demonstrated time and again that it cannot be trusted to abide by peace agreements. It is time for our government to cut all support for Israel’s atrocities.“
These and other groups, as well as governments in the Mideast and beyond, and US progressives, are demanding that Lebanon be included in the ceasefire. Although Israel agreed to the truce, the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza—asserts that the deal does not include Lebanon.
Iran categorically rejects Israel's claim and is using its leverage over the Strait of Hormuz to pressure Israel to reconsider its stance.
Some US progressives called for President Donald Trump to pressure Israel to stop attacking Lebanon, and for a suspension of American arms transfers to the IDF.
"It is unconscionable we continue to provide aid to Israel as they continue to murder civilians and violate international law in Lebanon, Gaza, and the West Bank," Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) said Thursday on Bluesky. "No more money to Israel’s genocidal apartheid regime."
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Children Among Those Killed by US With Mysterious New Weapon Fired on Iran: Reports
The Precision Strike Missile has never before been used in combat by the US military.
Mar 30, 2026
As experts and investigators analyze one of the first strikes carried out in the US-Israeli war on Iran, mounting reports point to a ballistic missile that had never been used before by the US military in combat—but which may have struck a residential area, a sports hall, and a school in the southern city of Lamerd.
Along with being accused of bombing a school in Minab, killing more than 160 children and teachers, the US reportedly attacked several facilities and civilian areas near an Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps facility in Lamerd, killing an additional 21 people, including children.
While analysts have found a US Tomahawk cruise missile was used in the Minab attack, munitions experts interviewed by the BBC and The New York Times in recent days said footage of the attacks and images of the targets after they were struck suggest a short-range ballistic missile called a Precision Strike Missile (PrSM) was used to bomb a sports hall, school, and residential neighborhood in Lamerd.
The missiles are newly developed and are designed to detonate just above a target and propel small tungsten pellets into the surrounding area.
As the Times reported, the PrSM is manufactured by Lockheed Martin and has the capability to hit targets at a 400-mile range, "but additional details about the weapon, including its expected accuracy and the quantity of explosives it carries, remain unknown to the public."
The Times reported that munitions experts had analyzed footage of a weapon in flight over a residential area about 900 feet from the sports hall and school, showing the missile erupting "in a large fireball midair."
Another video showed an explosion in midair just above the sports hall and nearby school, and photos of the aftermath showed the sites with numerous holes, presumably from the tungsten pellets.
The Times also verified a video that showed a plume of smoke rising in an area close to the other strikes at the same time, and local media reports said a cultural center had been hit in that attack. The target couldn't be independently verified.
Late last week, the BBC also reported that the PrSM was likely used on residential buildings in Lamerd on the first day of the war.
Experts at the defense intelligence firm Janes and at McKenzie Intelligence told the BBC that the shape, length, and size of the explosions created in verified footage they analyzed indicated the weapons were likely PrSM missiles.
"US Central Command has admitted to using PrSM in strikes from the desert of an unnamed Gulf country against Iran in the early phases of the conflict," McKenzie Intelligence emphasized.
Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Dan Caine also celebrated the use of the PrSM in a press conference on March 13, reported the BBC, saying the US military had "made history" and carried out attacks with "precision and determination that comes from relentless training and trust in each other and in their weapon systems."
But a spokesperson for US Central Command on Saturday told the Times that Pentagon officials are "aware of the reports and are looking into them," and claimed US forces "do not indiscriminately target civilians."
The US has also not officially taken responsibility for the attack in Minab that happened on the same day as the ones in Lamerd, but fragments of a Tomahawk missile that were found at the site are among the mounting evidence pointing to the Trump administration as the perpetrator.
The sports hall in Lamerd was reportedly being used by a children's volleyball team at the time of the strike; fourth grader Helma Ahmadizadeh and fifth grader Elham Zaeri were among those killed while at volleyball practice, according to an Iran-based journalist, Negin Bagheri.
Zaeri's father "described her as an avid volleyball player, who would always turn up to the sports hall 20 to 25 minutes early," the BBC reported.
The outlet also said the youngest victim of the suspected PrSM strike was two years old.
At Drop Site News, Mahmoud Aslan reported on the attack on the sports hall shortly after it took place, before analysts linked the bombing to the PrSM.
Hossein Gholami told Aslan his 16-year-old daughter, Zahra, had been training in the facility when he "noticed a strange gathering of people at the corner of the street leading to the sports hall."
“The screaming was rising from a distance," said Gholami. "A colleague ran toward me, waving his arm, and said in a shaken voice: ‘Zahra, the hall, there has been an explosion.'"
“The continuous screaming of the injured mixed with the sounds of secondary explosions," said Gholami, whose daughter was killed in the attack. "The ground was covered in debris and shattered glass. It was difficult to move with all the rubble. Ambulances arrived after about twenty minutes, but most of the injured were in critical condition. The smell of blood and burns covered everything."
“Every time I close my eyes," he said, "I see her face, her smile, and I hear the sound of the explosion."
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