The Pharmacist, the Blogger, and the Three-Year-Old

Berivan Molani had gone back to Tehran because she missed home. The 26-year-old lifestyle blogger had been safe in northern Iran, but homesickness pulled her back. She died in her bed that same night.

Her family had no idea that Iran's minister of intelligence lived across the street.

That detail — ordinary people unknowingly living next door to a high-value military target — cuts to the heart of a debate that has shadowed every modern air campaign: where does precision warfare end, and where does civilian harm begin?

What's Happening on the Ground

For more than three weeks, US and Israeli forces have struck thousands of targets across Iran, aiming primarily at nuclear facilities, military infrastructure, and senior regime figures. The campaign has been framed by both governments as a targeted operation with strict protocols to minimize civilian harm.

But the civilian toll is mounting. The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) has recorded more than 1,400 civilian deaths — 15% of them children. The International Committee of the Red Cross has called the civilian cost "alarming." The World Health Organization has verified over 20 attacks on healthcare facilities, with at least 9 health workers confirmed dead.

The single deadliest incident so far was a missile strike on a primary school in the southern town of Minab. Kurdish human rights group Hengaw identified 48 children and 10 adults killed in that one strike. The US military has not publicly acknowledged hitting the school, saying only that it is "investigating." Reports suggest the intended target was a nearby military base.

Iranian surgeon Dr. Hashim Moazenzadeh, now based in France but in close contact with colleagues still in Tehran, put it plainly: "The bombs being used are extremely large and we have a very high number of civilian casualties. If you're bombing near places like hospitals, you have to prioritize their safety and protection."

Doctors in public hospitals are "extremely exhausted," he said — many of them the same physicians who, just weeks ago, were treating wounded protesters shot by the Iranian government.

The Stories That Almost Weren't Told

What makes this conflict unusual is not just the scale of civilian harm, but how difficult it is to document. Iran has imposed a near-total internet blackout. Border guards have reportedly been ordered to shoot anyone attempting to access Iraqi phone networks near the border. Dozens of Iranians have been arrested simply for using the internet.

Sponsored

Advertise with Us

[email protected]

Sponsored

In that environment, the names of three victims reaching the outside world feels like a small act of defiance.

Parastesh Dahaghin was a pharmacist in Tehran's Apadana neighborhood. When a nearby IT company building was struck, she was killed at work. Her brother Poorya wrote on Instagram: "She told me: 'People need me, people have been wounded. They come to the pharmacy, and elderly people need their medication. I have to stay here and help my people.'" She had been warned to leave the city. She chose to stay.

Three-year-old Eilmah Bilki was severely injured in early March airstrikes in the western town of Sardasht. She died a day later. Hengaw provided her photo to the BBC. Little else is known about her.

Berivan Molani's story was pieced together by her friend Razieh Janbaz, a former Iranian handball player who rushed to the scene after the strike. He found the street in ruins. All that remained of Berivan's life, lying on the pavement, was a pair of trainers. "This was a family who did everything in their power to protect their child," he wrote, "yet in the end — without even knowing who lives in the house across from them — they lost her."

The Legal Framework — and Its Limits

International humanitarian law is unambiguous on paper. Civilians and civilian infrastructure must be protected. Medical workers, facilities, and humanitarian personnel must be respected. The ICRC's Vincent Cassard reiterated these principles in response to the Iran campaign. WHO's Ian Clarke went further: "Any attack on health care is a breach of international law."

The US has maintained it does not target civilians and takes its legal obligations seriously. Israel has similarly defended its strikes as precision operations against legitimate military targets.

But the framework strains against the physical reality of urban warfare. Tehran has no civilian bomb shelters, according to Hengaw. Government buildings are embedded throughout residential neighborhoods. Targeting a minister of intelligence who lives on a quiet street in a wealthy district means that everyone on that street — everyone who didn't know who their neighbor was — becomes part of the blast radius.

The ICRC has recorded damage to several of its own facilities. One Red Crescent worker, Hamidreza Jahanbakhsh, was killed. BBC-verified footage shows extensive damage to Tehran's 17-story Gandhi hospital, a Red Crescent hospital in Mahabad, and a hospital in the port city of Bushehr — from which newborns in incubators were evacuated on March 3rd.

Two Governments, One Population Caught Between Them

The civilian population of Iran is, in a grim sense, caught in a double bind. Hengaw's Awyar Shekhi described it starkly: "Earlier this year they were being killed on the streets by the Iranian government and now they risk being killed by the bombings."

The Iranian government, for its part, is not releasing its own military casualty figures. HRANA estimates at least 1,167 military personnel have been killed. The regime's response to the war has included mass internet shutdowns, arrests of civilians attempting to communicate with the outside world, and shoot-to-kill orders at the border — measures that suggest a government as focused on controlling its own population's narrative as on managing the military conflict itself.

This creates a situation where the human cost of the war is almost impossible to fully measure. The 1,400 civilian deaths HRANA has recorded are almost certainly an undercount. The real number may be significantly higher — and may remain unknown for years.