TEHRAN - As Iran faces an aggressive wave of Israeli strikes on civilian infrastructure, including hospitals, it now finds itself in another battlefront -- the war of narratives. 

In what Iranian officials are calling a “desperate psychological operation,” Israel has launched a media campaign falsely accusing Iran of targeting a hospital in southern Israel. This comes as Israel itself continues to directly strike hospitals across the ancient country, causing potential injuries, trauma, and destruction.

Targeting three Iranian hospitals, two in Tehran and one in Kermanshah, is a clear violation of international humanitarian law. And it obviously reveals Israel’s false claims and exposes its attempt to manipulate international opinion, yet it highlights the disturbing silence of so-called defenders of human rights in the West.

On June 14, an Israeli drone hit the perimeter of Hakim Children’s Hospital in southern Tehran. The attack endangered dozens of innocent children, but with no casualties. 

On June 17, Farabi Hospital in Kermanshah was bombed, damaging essential medical equipment and shattering windows, which injured both staff and patients.

On June 19, another hospital in Tehran was struck around midnight. Six ambulances and a health center were also destroyed in the same air strike.

These are not isolated incidents. As Iran’s Ministry of Health spokesman, Hossein Kermanpour, stated, these repeated attacks show a pattern of “inhumane and hostile behavior” by the Israeli regime.

Iran’s ambassador to Denmark, Seyyed Mohammad Reza Sajjadi, called the strike on the children’s hospital a “crime against humanity”, condemning Israel’s brutality and calling out the “hypocrisy” of Western powers who claim to defend human rights but remain silent in the face of clear war crimes.

The hospital that was never targeted

In the past two days, Israeli media widely claimed that an Iranian missile had directly hit Soroka Medical Center in Beersheba. The claim was quickly picked up by Western outlets, with little scrutiny or evidence. But Iranian sources, including official statements, have categorically denied the allegation.

According to Tehran, the target was not a hospital, but two major Israeli military installations situated nearby: the IDF’s main cyber intelligence base and a digital command facility within the Gav-Yam Technology Park. These are not civilian facilities; they are core to Israel’s military infrastructure.

Iranian reports state that while the Soroka hospital may have felt shockwaves from the nearby blast, no missile actually hit the hospital. The damage was collateral and minimal. Iranian officials describe the Israeli narrative as deliberately misleading, aimed at shifting the world’s attention away from the real story: Iran’s successful targeting of sensitive Israeli intelligence assets.

How Israel uses propaganda to mask war crimes

By falsely accusing Iran of hospital strikes, Israel seeks to create a moral equivalency that simply does not exist. Iran’s strikes have been clearly directed at military installations, not civilian targets. The Zionist Israeli regime, unable to protect its intelligence systems from Iranian precision strikes, is now attempting to win in the media what it lost on the battlefield.

As the world watches the latest chapter in the Iran-Israel conflict, it must ask a critical question: Who is actually violating the laws of war?

AM