[ Last Update: Thursday, 05 March 2026 6:43 PM ]
The
air at the bombed-out Tehran hospital room hung thick with dust and the
metallic tang of recent destruction carried out by the United States
and the Israeli regime.
Against a backdrop of shattered
concrete, two newborns clung precariously to life. Their breaths were
being measured by the rhythmic beep of monitors connected by vital
wires.
Amid the dust-choked room following the dastardly
US-Israeli aggression, Iranian Red Crescent personnel worked to sever
the fragile connection to the damaged infrastructure, to take the
infants out of the wreckage.
The Gandhi Hospital in central
Tehran, along with a nearby residential building, sustained catastrophic
damage from strikes carried out by the United States and Israel late
Sunday night, a day after the aggression was launched without
provocation.
Immediately following the attack, harrowing footage
depicted medical personnel urgently transferring the tiny newborns from
their compromised incubators to ambulances.
Hope for new life, IVF centre targeted
The
tragedy deepened with confirmation from hospital authorities later
about the massive damage incurred by a specialized IVF center there,
which lay in ruins.
The IVF centre was a sanctuary where hundreds
of hopeful couples had invested their futures, their deepest desires for
parenthood.
The US-Israeli aggression destroyed their dreams for future generations that had been painstakingly planned.
“The
ledger of violated human rights in this war will be written in blood
and shame,” Hossein Kermanpour, Health Ministry spokesman, wrote in a
post on his X account.
“For the first time in my life, I am
witnessing something I never even saw during the Iran-Iraq War. Patients
being carried in their caregivers’ arms, fleeing into smoke-filled
streets after missiles exploded beside their hospital,” Kermanpour
added.
The
assault was not limited to Gandhi Hospital. Reports confirmed that
Khatam al-Anbiya Hospital and Motahari Hospital were also directly
targeted in Tehran.
Furthermore, several missiles struck near
Abuzar Hospital in the southern city of Ahvaz, forcing the immediate
evacuation of 21 patients, including those in intensive care, requiring
30 ambulances to reroute them to other centers.
Images from Ahvaz
captured the evacuation under dire circumstances. Emergency personnel
were moving the sick through the thick plumes of smoke while the
terrifying sounds of aerial bombardment still echoed overhead.
The
American and Israeli regimes also targeted three emergency medical
bases in Sarab, Chabahar, and Hamedan following the Abuzar attack.
A
member of the Iranian Parliament said five hospitals and medical
centers have been damaged or destroyed during the US-Israeli terrorist
attacks on the Islamic Republic.
“Unfortunately, this illegal act
of aggression resulted not only in the destruction of the buildings of
hospitals and medical centers but also the injury of a number of
students and local residents,” Fatemeh Mohammad Beigi, a member of the
Parliament’s Health and Treatment Commission, said in a statement on
Monday.
She added that a number of these medical centers have been evacuated in fear of more attacks.
Assault on life itself
Iranian
President Masoud Pezeshkian denounced the US-Israeli strikes on
civilian infrastructure, stating that the attacks on medical facilities
“affect life itself and assaults on educational centers jeopardize the
future of a nation.”
He made this reference following a US-Israeli
strike on an elementary school in the southern Hormozgan Province that
killed 171 girls.
He added that "targeting patients and children blatantly violates humanitarian principles."
The Iranian president called upon the international community to censure the atrocities.
The
Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom
Ghebreyesus, expressed extreme concern over the damage to Gandhi
Hospital in Tehran.
Following the bombing, he posted on X,
stating, “Reports of Tehran’s Gandhi Hospital being damaged during
today’s bombardment of the Iranian capital are extremely worrying.”
Ghebreyesus
reiterated that “all efforts must be taken to prevent health facilities
from being caught up in the ongoing conflict,” emphasizing that “Health
facilities are protected under international humanitarian law” with the
hashtag “#healthisnotatarget.”
Strike on hospitals, a pattern
However,
this event is part of a disturbing pattern. This is not the first time
Israel has attacked medical facilities in the Islamic Republic. During
the 12-day military aggression in June, nearly a dozen hospitals were
targeted in clear violation of international conventions.
The
Geneva Conventions, long considered the bedrock of humanitarian
protection in wartime, have been repeatedly flouted by both the US and
Israel.
In Gaza, an entire health system has been systematically
crippled, and doctors have been killed while on duty since the genocidal
war was launched in October 2023.
According to chilling WHO figures, 94 percent of hospitals in Gaza were destroyed by Israel during its two-year-long genocide.
