As a fragile cease-fire takes hold, Iran is sorting through the wreckage from U.S.-Israeli strikes, which have exacted a heavy toll on its civilian infrastructure. The New York Times has verified damage to 22 schools and 17 health care facilities, a fraction of the devastation in the war so far.
Hedayat Boys’ High School
Shajarah Tayyebeh Elementary School
Imam Reza Elementary School
Hijab Girls’ High School
Shaghayegh Girls’ School
Shahid Mahallati Elementary School
Shahid Imam Reza Boys’ School
Tamadonsazan Elementary School
University of Science and Technology
Shahid Beheshti University
Sharif University of Technology
Isfahan University of Technology
Motahari Burn and Trauma Hospital
Dr. Safaeian Medical Clinic
Note: Images are not available for 15 verified sites.
The scale of devastation is likely far greater than The Times’s analysis. The Iranian Red Crescent Society, the country’s primary humanitarian relief organization, said on April 2 that at least 763 schools and 316 health care facilities had been damaged or destroyed in the war.
The Times confirmed damage by using high-resolution satellite imagery and by verifying footage from state media or social media sites, including X, Telegram, Instagram and Facebook. The analysis was limited to schools and health care facilities that were damaged on or after Feb. 28, the first day of the war.
The Times’s analysis shows that the damage was often caused by strikes in crowded neighborhoods — especially in Tehran, a capital of 10 million people that is as densely populated as New York City.
The Times was not able to verify the total number of people killed at schools and health care facilities. At least 1,701 civilians have been killed in Iran as of Tuesday, according to the Human Rights Activists News Agency. Among them are students, teachers and health care workers.
In most instances examined by The Times, the intended target of a strike was not clear. In some cases, schools and health care facilities were damaged by nearby strikes; others were directly hit. It was not always possible to determine whether the strikes were by the U.S. or Israeli military.
39 structures with verified damage in Iran
Notes: Locations are based on imagery verified by The Times. Sites with overlapping locations are shown in a grid.The New York Times
Schools and hospitals hold some of the strongest protections of all civilian infrastructure under international humanitarian law, and intentional attacks on them could be considered war crimes. Even strikes on military targets that damage nearby schools and hospitals can violate international law, experts say, and military commanders are expected to take stringent measures to prevent and minimize such harm.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and other American officials have insisted that the U.S. military is acting with precision.
During the second week of the war, Mr. Hegseth accused Iran of “moving rocket launchers into civilian neighborhoods near schools, near hospitals to try to prevent our ability to strike.” He has not provided any proof for this assertion, and when asked by The Times to provide such evidence, the Pentagon declined to comment.
The Pentagon also declined to comment on The Times’s analysis of schools and health care facilities damaged during the war.
Early strikes on schools are among the deadliest
By far the deadliest strike on civilians came on Feb. 28, the first day of the war, when the Shajarah Tayyebeh Elementary School was bombed in the southern Iranian town of Minab. The strike killed at least 175 people, most of them children, according to Iranian health officials.
Shajarah Tayyebeh Elementary School in Minab
IRIB TV, via Agence France Presse
An ongoing investigation by the U.S. military found that American forces were responsible for the bombing, according to U.S. officials and others with knowledge of the preliminary findings. The military had used outdated information and labeled the school as a military target, the early findings said.
The site of the school was originally part of an Iranian naval base, but according to a visual investigation by The Times, the building had been fenced off from the naval base for at least 10 years. It had clearly visible play areas, and its walls were painted blue and pink.
U.S. officials have emphasized that the findings of the investigation were preliminary and that there were still unanswered questions about why the outdated information had not been double checked, said the people briefed on the inquiry. The White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, has said the investigation is “still ongoing.”
On the same day, in Abyek, west of Tehran, a blast from a nearby strike ripped through a boys elementary school, blowing out windows and sending dozens of children on the playground running for cover.
Imam Reza Elementary School in Abyek
Satellite image analysis and video footage verified by The Times showed that the strike had apparently targeted a communications tower less than 400 feet away. One boy was killed, Iranian state media reported. The footage showed that he appeared to have been hit by debris on the playground.
Verified footage showed that another strike that day hit near a high school in Tehran’s Narmak district, in a residential area where Iran’s former president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, was known to live. Two students were killed, according to Mehr, a semiofficial news agency.
A fourth strike that day, using a new U.S.-made ballistic missile, hit a sports hall, an adjacent elementary school and a blood transfusion center near a military facility in the city of Lamerd, according to weapons experts and a visual analysis by The Times. The sports hall was being used by a young girls’ volleyball team at the time.
At least six people, including at least four children, were killed in this strike, according to a Times review of a list of fatalities released by an Iranian news agency, images of caskets posted online, recordings of funeral speeches and reference photos of the victims.
What was damaged in the Lamerd strike
Source: Satellite image by Airbus DS.The New York Times
As the war got underway, the Iranian government suspended classes in schools across the country. But U.S.-Israeli strikes continued to damage school buildings for weeks.
Some, such as the Shaghayegh Girls’ School in Khomein and a building at the Iran University for Science and Technology in Tehran, were directly hit and reduced to ruins, according to analysis of video and satellite imagery.
Bombings near hospitals forced evacuations
Health facilities have also been substantially damaged, impacting patients, health care workers and emergency crews.
On March 1, the facade of the Gandhi Hospital in northern Tehran was ripped off during heavy strikes that appeared to target Iranian state television facilities across the street.
Videos taken on a government media tour from outside and inside the hospital show the extent of the strike’s damage.
Gandhi Hospital’s exterior
Gandhi Hospital’s interior
Arash Khamooshi for The New York Times
The hospital was forced to evacuate its patients, including at least one infant in an incubator, according to Iran’s health ministry, hospital officials in interviews with Iranian state
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