An injured man is led from the scene after an Israeli airstrike on downtown Tehran, June 15, 2025. (Amir Kholousi/ISNA/AP)
Co-written with William Christou and originally published in The Guardian:
Iranians Stunned by Israel’s Strikes — “The Sky is Red and We Fear More Attacks”
The stream of wounded in Imam Khomeini Hospital in Tehran had been steady since Friday. On Sunday evening it became a flood. A renewed wave of Israeli strikes on Iran’s capital overwhelmed the hospital’s emergency unit.
A doctor at the unit described the scene:
It was a bloodbath. We were overwhelmed by chaos and the screams of grieving family members. Dozens upon dozens of people with life-threatening injuries, minor wounds and even bodies were brought in.
As fighting between Israel and Iran entered its fourth day on Monday, Iranian hospitals were receiving a surge of wounded people, overwhelming medical facilities and exhausted personnel. Medical staff described scenes of bloody chaos and an influx of injured people that has only seemed to grow as Israeli strikes increased in intensity.
“I’ve seen toddlers, teenagers, adults and the elderly alike. Profusely bleeding mothers were rushing in with their children injured by shrapnel,” the doctor said, adding that some parents did not realize they themselves were injured until they put their children down.
They rattled off a list of injuries: metal lodged in femur bones and the soft tissues of the hip joints, internal bleeding and severe burns. Many of those wounded had been nearby when an Israeli bomb dropped, peppering them with deadly shrapnel.
Iranian authorities on Monday morning said 1,277 people had been taken to hospital across the country’s university hospital network – of whom 224 had died.
The doctor at the Imam Khomeini suggested the true toll was greater. At his hospital, more beds had been assigned to the intensive care unit while patients with minor injuries were being transferred to other clinics, he said.
Staff in the ICU had been instructed not to post any details about the number of wounded or dead on social media, and the rota was being monitored by department heads. A Tehran-based journalist said authorities had denied requests for information on the number of dead and wounded.
Israelis reeling from Iranian barrages brace for a new kind of war: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/06/17/israel-security-iran-missiles/
“For five days, Iran’s ballistic missile salvos against Israel have torn through residential buildings and killed two dozen civilians, set cars and infrastructure ablaze, and have Israelis questioning their already fractured sense of security.”
Israel and US exhausting supplies of ballistic missile interceptors: https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-and-us-exhausting-supplies-ballistic-missile-interceptors-source-says