MADRID - Over the past five days, the United States and Israel have carried out air and missile strikes across Iran whose consequences extend far beyond military objectives. The attacks have struck schools, hospitals, residential neighborhoods, and civic infrastructure. What is emerging is a pattern in which civilian life itself has been made the object of military operations. The destruction is deliberate and legally indefensible.

In Minab, Hormozgan province, the Shajareh Tayyebeh school was struck just as the elementary female students were arriving for Saturday classes. Rescue teams worked through the rubble to recover bodies, and local authorities announced that 165 graves would be prepared for the victims, most of them were between seven and twelve years old. In Tehran, residential blocks near Ferdowsi Square were reduced to ruins. The Azadi Sports Complex, a venue primarily used for public events, sustained severe damage. Hospitals and medical centers across several provinces also report structural destruction. Some of these sites were hit in patterns consistent with double-tap attacks, a tactic historically associated with Israeli operations, aimed at striking first responders and civilians who arrive to assist the wounded.

These actions cannot be described as mistakes. The United States and Israel have access to the most advanced targeting technologies and intelligence systems in the world. Their failure to protect civilians is a matter of choice. Their strategy transforms urban space, social infrastructure, and the basic functions of society into instruments of coercion. The cumulative pattern is unmistakable: civilian life is not collateral damage; it is the target.

Civilian protection and the legal case against the United States and Israel

International humanitarian law establishes absolute protections for civilian populations. The Geneva Conventions, their Additional Protocols, and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court define schools, hospitals, residential neighborhoods, and civic infrastructure as civilian objects. 

The school in Minab had no military function. The claim that proximity to a military target justifies the bombing is legally invalid. The attack constitutes a war crime under international law. Hospitals and emergency centers occupy an even higher threshold of protection. Destroying or disabling medical facilities prevents treatment for the wounded and erodes society’s ability to survive attacks. Residential neighborhoods and public venues such as the Azadi Sports Complex are civilian by definition. Targeting them serves no legitimate military objective.

Double-tap attacks illustrate intentional harm. Striking first responders and families arriving to help maximizes casualties. This tactic, documented in Israeli operations elsewhere, is a war crime. The United States has provided support to Israeli military doctrine for decades, making it complicit. Each strike, each pattern of destruction, reinforces the argument that these are deliberate violations of international humanitarian law.

This campaign is not limited to physical damage. It systematically undermines the institutions that sustain everyday life. Schools educate the next generation. Hospitals preserve life. Neighborhoods maintain social cohesion. Destroying them weakens the societal infrastructure that allows populations to function, turning civilians into instruments of warfare. The United States and Israel are executing a strategy that weaponizes society itself.

The pattern of destruction and the right to maim

The attacks in Minab, Tehran, and elsewhere illustrate a consistent operational logic. Civilians are not incidental victims; their institutions are targeted intentionally. Jasbir Puar’s concept of the “right to maim” illuminates this approach. Maiming, injury, and the chronic degradation of social life are used as instruments of control. Populations are left in perpetual vulnerability. The objective is not only death but debility, fear, and exhaustion.

The technological sophistication of the US and Israeli forces makes civilian casualties foreseeable. These are not unintended consequences. They are the result of precise operational planning. Schools, hospitals, neighborhoods, and recreational spaces are deliberately integrated into the battlefield. This constitutes a war crime executed with intention and capability, not misfortune.

The international response exposes structural inequalities. Western governments and media treat these deaths as secondary to strategic calculations regarding Iran’s regional influence or nuclear program. The humanitarian consequences of bombing campaigns, including the deaths of schoolchildren, receive limited attention. This selective recognition of suffering exposes the double standard of mourning. Iranian lives are deemed less valuable; their deaths normalized in ways that would be intolerable if Western civilians were targeted.

The tragedy at Shahid Rajaei port exemplifies this hierarchy. Local catastrophes are simultaneously global symbols of structural injustice. Iranian suffering is treated as politically instrumental. Death and destruction among populations outside dominant Western frameworks are normalized, tolerated, and in some cases justified by strategic necessity. The campaign against civilian infrastructure demonstrates a system in which the humanity of certain populations is subordinated to geopolitical interests.

Costas Douzinas’ analysis of international law is relevant here. Legal principles that claim universality exist in a global system shaped by power. Enforcement is contingent. States like the United States and Israel occupy positions that render them effectively above the law. Their actions are codified as strategic necessity, while violations of the same norms by less powerful states are condemned. The selective enforcement of international law is visible in the attacks on schools, hospitals, and neighborhoods in Iran.

The consequences for society are severe. The destruction of schools, hospitals, and public venues systematically undermines social cohesion. It denies education, healthcare, and safe gathering spaces. Civilians are forced into a state of perpetual vulnerability. The deliberate targeting of Minab, Tehran, and Shahid Rajaei port transforms civilian life into a battlefield. Graves, rubble, and destroyed infrastructure bear witness to the war crimes executed by the United States and Israel.

Iranian civilians are not collateral damage. Their lives, institutions, and social structures have been integrated into a strategy of coercion and structural violence.

International law has been ignored. The United States and Israel are executing a campaign in which civilian life is intentionally degraded, injured, and destroyed.

The broader moral and political implications are profound. Iranian suffering is measured by a different standard than that of Western populations. International condemnation is muted. Media coverage is selective. Statements by Western officials reveal indifference or implicit justification. This is not accidental. It is an illustration of a global architecture of inequality in which civilian deaths are normalized when they occur among populations outside dominant geopolitical frameworks.

The Minab school, the Azadi Sports Complex, the hospitals and neighborhoods across Iran, and the disaster at Shahid Rajaei port are all part of this pattern. Each site is evidence of US–Israeli war crimes. Each site is a testament to the systematic devaluation of civilian life. Graves and rubble are the visible proof of an international system that permits the powerful to violate law with impunity.

For Iranian civilians, the stakes are immediate. For the international legal system, the stakes are structural. If the United States and Israel are not held accountable, international law becomes a rhetorical instrument rather than a genuine constraint on the use of force. Until accountability is enforced, the campaign against civilian life will continue. The graves will multiply. The ruins will remain. The devaluation of Iranian lives will persist.