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War & Peace
US-Israeli Bombs Strike 'The Fourth School in 6 Days' in Iran: Report
"There are straight lines between what Israel has attempted to do… in Gaza, to completely decimate and collapse the systems that existed there, to what we are seeing in Iran," said one expert.
Mar 06, 2026
US and Israeli missiles have hit a school in Iran for the fourth time in six days, according to videos shared on social media by a spokesperson for the Iranian Foreign Ministry on Friday.
Spokesperson Esmaeil Baqaei said that the Shahid Hamedani School, an elementary school in Niloufar Square, Tehran, had been "targeted by the American/Israeli aggressors."
He posted a video showing the school filled with dozens of young students prior to the attack, followed by scenes of the school in ruins, with several empty classrooms filled with rubble.
Baquaei said it showed "how the United States administration is helping the people of Iran." He did not include any information about the number of casualties or the circumstances of the attack.
According to the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), at least 192 children have been killed across the Middle East since the US and Israel launched a regime change war this past Saturday.
Most of them were girls ages 7-12 who were killed on Saturday during an attack at a girls' school in the southern Iranian town of Minab.
At least 175 people were reported to have been killed in the attack, which unnamed officials have said was "likely" carried out by the United States, according to Reuters. HuffPost reported that Pentagon officials have briefed Congress that the US "was most likely responsible."
Eyewitnesses and relatives of the victims have told Middle East Eye that the attack was a "double-tap" strike in which survivors and first responders were targeted following the initial bombing. An Al Jazeera investigation has concluded that the attack was likely "deliberate."
Iranian media have also published CCTV video of a separate strike on the same day, in which a missile landed next to a boys' school in Qazvin, resulting in scenes of terrified students and teachers running for their lives.
On Thursday, two other schools in the town of Parand, southwest of Tehran, were hit by missiles fired by the US and Israel, according to Iranian state media. The Fars News Agency shared photos of a classroom filled with debris. So far, no casualties from the attack have been reported.
US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has said that as it wages its war in Iran, the US is not abiding by "stupid rules of engagement," and has boasted of raining down “death and destruction from the sky all day long."
According to data analyzed by the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), part of a US-based human rights monitor for Iran, at least 1,168 civilians have been killed by US-Israeli attacks since Saturday. The Iranian government on Friday put the death toll at 1,332 people.
More than 3,643 civilian sites have been damaged in attacks attributed to the US and Israel, according to figures released by the Iranian Red Crescent Society—among them have been 3,090 homes, 528 commercial centres, 13 medical facilities and nine Red Crescent centres.
Amjad Iraqi, a senior analyst at the International Crisis Group, told Al Jazeera that these routine attacks on civilian infrastructure increasingly resemble those carried out by Israel during its more than two-years of genocide in Gaza.
“There are straight lines between what Israel has attempted to do… in Gaza, to completely decimate and collapse the systems that existed there," Iraqi said, "to what we are seeing in Iran, on a much more massive and dangerous scale, to bring down the Islamic Republic and to cause as much devastation as possible.”
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Demanding Peace Talks, UN Chief Warns Iran War 'Could Spiral Beyond Anyone's Control'
"It is time to stop the fighting and get to serious diplomatic negotiations," said António Guterres. "The stakes could not be higher."
Mar 06, 2026
After nearly a week of bloodshed in President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's war on Iran—which critics argued violates not only the US Constitution but also the United Nations Charter—UN Secretary-General António Guterres on Friday demanded a return to negotiations.
Trump and Netanyahu launched "Operation Epic Fury" just a day after Badr Albusaidi, the foreign minister of Oman and mediator of recent nuclear talks between the United States and Iran, said on a prominent US news program that "we have already achieved quite a substantial progress" and "the peace deal is within our reach."
The Iranian government said Thursday that at least 1,230 people had been killed in Iran. The US-Israeli assault continued on Friday, as Guterres declared that "all the unlawful attacks in the Middle East and beyond are causing tremendous suffering and harm to civilians throughout the region—and pose a grave a risk to the global economy, particularly to the most vulnerable people."
"The situation could spiral beyond anyone's control," Guterres said. "It is time to stop the fighting and get to serious diplomatic negotiations. The stakes could not be higher."
The UN chief's statement came amid reporting from Drop Site News that "US-Israeli missiles have hit an elementary school in Tehran—the fourth school in six days." The first strike, for which no government has taken responsibility but analyses suggest the United States is to blame, killed around 175 people, mostly children, at a girls' school in Minab on Saturday. Then, on Thursday, two boys’ schools southwest of Tehran were bombed.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk also called for all parties "to give peace a chance," highlighting in a Friday statement that the war "has been spreading like wildfire" and caused significant damage in not only Iran and Israel, but "at least a dozen other countries, mostly in the Gulf, with risks of major economic and environmental ramifications across the world."
"The world urgently needs to see steps to contain and extinguish this blaze—but instead we are only seeing more inflammatory, bellicose rhetoric, more bombings, more destruction, killings, and escalation, that fuels it further," he continued. "Confusion has also been sown around international law—and some have openly derided the fundamental values of our common humanity."
While Türk directed his plea for deescalation at the warring governments, he also urged other states "to call clearly on those involved to pull back," arguing that "cool heads must prevail if we are to prevent further terror and devastation for civilians."
"Given the magnitude of this crisis," he said, "I call on heads of state and government around the world unequivocally to commit to defending international human rights law, international humanitarian law, and the UN Charter itself—we cannot afford for more powder kegs to ignite."
"Lebanon is becoming a key flashpoint," Türk noted. "I am extremely concerned and worried about the latest developments following Hezbollah's attacks on Israel and Israel's heavy counterstrikes, as well as its extensive displacement orders that have already forced hundreds of thousands of people to flee their homes. I call for an immediate cessation of hostilities."
More than half a million people have fled their homes in southern Lebanon, and the death toll there this week is estimated to be over 130 people, as Common Dreams reported earlier Friday. Türk has denounced Israel's "blanket, massive displacement orders" in the country that are impacting hundreds and thousands of Lebanese.
As one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, the US has veto power in that body. Considering those circumstances, the group Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN) this week urged the UN General Assembly to formally declare Trump and Netanyahu's assault on Iran a "war of aggression" in violation of the charter.
"No legal framework, international or domestic, can justify this US-Israeli war of aggression against Iran," DAWN executive director Omar Shakir said in a statement. "This war is patently illegal, and it must be stopped."
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Warnings of Further Catastrophe After Trump Says Only Deal for Iran is 'Unconditional Surrender'
“The last time a country ‘unconditionally surrendered’ to the US was after we dropped atomic bombs on Japan,” noted one foreign policy scholar.
Mar 06, 2026
President Donald Trump’s demand for an ‘unconditional surrender” from Iran is raising fears that the massive military campaign he unleashed this past weekend will turn into an unmitigated disaster, potentially unseen since the Second World War.
“There will be no deal with Iran except UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER,” the president wrote Friday morning on Truth Social. “After that, and the selection of a GREAT & ACCEPTABLE Leader(s), we, and many of our wonderful and very brave allies and partners, will work tirelessly to bring Iran back from the brink of destruction, making it economically bigger, better, and stronger than ever before.”
Dylan Williams, vice president for government affairs at the Center for International Policy, explained how unprecedented this demand was.
"The invasion and occupation of Iraq and replacing the Taliban with the Taliban after 20 years in Afghanistan were disastrous enough without seeking their formal surrender,” he said.
Each of those conflicts entailed the deployment of more than a million US soldiers and dragged on for years, costing hundreds of thousands of lives.
“The last time a country ‘unconditionally surrendered’ to the US was after we dropped atomic bombs on Japan,” Williams added.
With each passing day, the Trump administration has seemed to extend its projections for the scope and duration of its regime-change campaign in Iran.
Last Saturday, the first day of “Operation Epic Fury,” which killed Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Trump projected that the war would be over in “four weeks or less.” The next day, he adjusted that to say it could go on for “four to five” weeks, or perhaps “much longer.”
By Wednesday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the war could drag on for as long as “eight weeks.” That same day, Politico reported that US Central Command (CENTCOM) had requested additional intelligence officers for its Tampa headquarters to support Iran operations for “at least 100 days but likely through September.”
According to data analyzed by the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), part of a US-based human rights monitor for Iran, at least 1,168 civilians have been killed in the US-Israeli war against Iran, where Hegseth boasted earlier this week that the US is raining down “death and destruction from the sky all day long.”
Investigations have revealed that the deadly bombing of a girls' school, which killed at least 175 people last weekend, mostly children, was "likely" carried out by the US, and several other schools have also been attacked.Following retaliation from the Iranian-aligned militia Hezbollah, Israel has launched a new onslaught into Lebanon. This week, the Israeli military ordered more than half a million people to flee their homes immediately and has pounded Beirut and other areas with airstrikes, killing more than 200 as of Friday, according to the Lebanese health ministry.
Trump reportedly began the war expecting a swift and painless display of overwhelming force akin to his abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in January. But Iran has mounted a fearsome retaliation that has hit US bases and other infrastructure in several of the wealthy Persian Gulf states aligned with the US and Israel, killing at least six American troops.
"Trump demands Iran's unconditional surrender," said Sina Toosi, a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy. "Meanwhile, the Strait of Hormuz remains closed, global economic costs are rapidly mounting, Iranian missile and drone strikes continue, several US [missile defense] and radar facilities have been hit, interceptors are being drained, and Israeli air defenses are showing strain."
"Inside Iran, there are no signs of regime disintegration or unrest. The Islamic Republic’s base, and beyond it, continues to be mobilized in the streets across the country while officials assert they are prepared for a long war," he continued. "Gulf allies haven’t joined in attacking Iran and appear more angry that Trump launched this war against their wishes."
"The reality on the ground," Toosi said, "looks nothing like the fantasy seemingly in Trump's head and being sold by some in Washington."
Trita Parsi, the executive vice president at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, said that Trump’s demand for an unconditional surrender suggests that rather than seeking an offramp, he is retreating further into delusion about the ease with which the US can force Iran to capitulate.
“He was lulled into believing that Iranian surrender is in the cards,” Parsi said. “It isn’t.”
Parsi said Trump rejected diplomatic solutions, including a deal mediated by Oman just before the attack began, under which Iran had agreed to stop stockpiling enriched uranium and degrade what it has to the point where it could not be used for a nuclear weapon.
“The false lure of surrender,” he said, “is why his war is turning into a disaster.”
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$1 Billion Daily Cost of Trump's Iran War Could Fund Food Aid, Healthcare for Tens of Millions
"Medicare for All, or endless foreign wars?" asked Democratic US Senate candidate Graham Platner. "Anyone in the House or Senate giving the wrong answer should lose their seat."
Mar 06, 2026
The daily price tag of US President Donald Trump's illegal war on Iran would be enough to cover the daily costs of federal nutrition assistance for more than 40 million Americans, as well as daily Medicaid costs for the roughly 16 million people expected to lose health coverage due to the Republican budget package that Trump signed into law last year.
That's according to an analysis published Thursday by the National Priorities Project (NPP), which noted that—on an annual basis—the estimated $1 billion-per-day cost of the US war on Iran is "higher than the appropriated budget of any federal agency except the Pentagon itself."
"That money could cover the things we need here at home," wrote NPP's Alliyah Lusuegro and Lindsay Koshgarian. "The tradeoff is clear: the Trump administration—backed by several members of Congress—is cutting healthcare and food assistance for millions of families while spending $1 billion a day on this emerging war."
"The question isn’t whether the money exists—it's what we choose to spend it on," they wrote.
In a social media post on Friday, Democratic US Senate candidate Graham Platner—a veteran of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars—posed what he characterized as a "simple question" to members of Congress: "Medicare for All, or endless foreign wars?"
"Anyone in the House or Senate giving the wrong answer," Platner added, "should lose their seat."
"The cost of the war in Iraq ended up being almost $3 trillion. This could be astronomical, easily.”
The Pentagon's early estimate of the Iran war's cost was first reported by Atlantic journalist Nancy Youssef, who cited an unnamed congressional official.
In a separate analysis released earlier this week, the Center for Strategic and International Studies put the cost of the first 100 hours of the Iran war at $3.7 billion, or $891.4 million per day. The Pentagon is reportedly planning to ask Congress to approve at least $50 billion in supplemental funding for the war, a historically unpopular assault that lawmakers did not authorize.
“Without support from the American people, Donald Trump led the country into a reckless war with Iran that has taken the lives of six service members and injured several others," said Kendall Witmer, rapid response director for the Democratic National Committee. "Now, the White House is scrambling to come up with a plan as the cost of Trump’s war skyrockets. Working families are already struggling with soaring prices and a hollowed-out job market—they can't afford Trump’s war of choice."
On Thursday, Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.) asked the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office to conduct a thorough analysis of the financial costs of the Iran war, including scenarios in which the assault drags on for more than five weeks and the US launches a ground invasion.
“Taxpayers deserve a nonpartisan estimate of the financial and economic impact of President Trump’s reckless war in Iran that has already led to the tragic deaths of American servicemembers," said Boyle. "American families don’t want billions of dollars wasted on an unnecessary war—they want lower costs and affordable healthcare.”
Koshgarian of NPP told CNN that the costs of war are "highly unpredictable, and so we won’t know the cost of it until it’s over."
"The cost of the war in Iraq ended up being almost $3 trillion,” Koshgarian said. “This could be astronomical, easily.”
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