TEHRAN – In their illegal and unprovoked war on Iran, the Israeli regime and the United States have not even spared academic centers and educational facilities, as they have not spared hospitals and heritage sites.

Just on the early hours of March 28, Israel and the U.S. struck the research and educational buildings at Iran University of Science and Technology (IUST) in eastern Tehran.

Israel views universities and research centers in Iran as one of its main headaches. By striking such centers the Israeli regime seeks to dissuade students and professors from pursuing scientific and technological studies.

The Israeli assassination of researchers and scientists before its direct war against Iran in June 2025 clearly shows that fanatics in Israel are greatly unhappy about Iran’s technological progress. It launched the campaign to assassinate Iranian experts from 2010. Just from 2010 to 2020, five Iranian academics were killed by car bombings or shootings.  

In the new Israeli-U.S. aggression on Iran, that began on Feb. 28, Saeed Shamaghdari, a professor of the faculty of the electricity of IUST, was killed in an attack on his home. In this attack, his son and daughter were also killed.

Knowing that universities and research centers are the engine of Iran’s technological progress, Israel and the U.S. have resorted to such vicious and inhumane acts. They are greatly worried that researchers in Iran have manufactured precision-guided supersonic missiles and highly advanced unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that have struck designated targets in the hearts of Tel Aviv, Haifa and other places.

To find scientific and military superiority in the West Asia region, Israel’s assassination of experts goes back to decades ago. For example, in the chaos that followed the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, Mossad agents assassinated many Iraqi academics. A Paris-based human rights organization put the number at about a thousand and a documented list of 105 cases. These professors, it says, were not random casualties but targeted assassinations.   

The first documented case is that of Muhamad al-Rawi, the chancellor of Baghdad University, who was killed in July 2003, when two men entered his private clinic, one of them feigned severe stomach pain and was doubled over. Concealed against his stomach was a gun with which he shot al-Rawi dead.  The assassinations were so recurrent that the Arab Committee for Human Rights (ACHR) issued an international appeal for help to protect Iraqi academics.

These assassinations were taking place despite the fact that Iraq was being governed by the pro-U.S. rulers who had no animosity with Israel after the overthrow of the Saddam Hussein regime. 

Also, the joint Israeli-U.S. war of aggression on Iran has so far led to the death of many students and teachers. Since the start of the war, over 252 students and teachers have been killed. Hossein Sadeqi, head of the information center at the Iranian Education Ministry, announced on March 27 that 201 of the victims were students and 51 were teachers. 

The shocking attack on the Shajareh Tayyebeh School in the southern city of Minab on the first day of the war in which 168 students, teachers, staff and parents were butchered will continue to reverberate across Iran and outside for years to come. 

Contrary to initial reports, both elementary schoolgirls and schoolboys were studying in this school.  The United States struck the school with three Tomahawk cruise missiles. The attack happened at about 10: 40 am local time.

The degree of the strike was so destructive that the bodies of two students and a teacher not found. One was a female teacher named “Razieh Zamani” and two schoolchildren named “Makan Nasiri” and “Mohmmad Taha Jaafari”.

Addressing the Human Rights Council in Geneva on March 27, UN Human Rights Commissioner Volker Turk, in a video statement, sought accountability for the tragedy. 

“The bombing of Shajareh Tayyebeh School Elementary School in Minab evoked a visceral horror. The images of bombed-out classrooms and grieving parents showed clearly who pays the highest price for war: civilians with no power in the decisions that led to conflict. In this case, a reported 168 pupils, teachers, school staff, and their loved ones.” Turk regretted.

“Whatever differences countries have, we can all agree they will not be solved by killing schoolchildren,” he told the UN Human Rights Council.

The war has its own laws and regulations. However, Israel’s record is clear to all when it comes to its aggression on others. Also, the U.S., who claims it is the flagbearer of democracy, the leader of free world, seriously threatens international bodies such as the United Nation’s International Court of Justice. 

“That is why we have the laws of war: to protect children and other civilians caught up in conflict, as well as schools and all civilian infrastructure. In the case of this school, the onus is on those who carried out the attack to investigate it promptly, impartially, transparently and thoroughly, to determine the facts and lay the basis for accountability,” he said, adding, “There must be justice for the terrible harm done.”

Being fully aware that the schoolchildren in Minab were massacred just two days after the third session of the talks between the U.S. and Iran in Geneva and the sides were going to meet again next week, the high commissioner stated that resort to the use of force, at a time when negotiations were ongoing, is a strategic failure that has had a devastating impact on civilians. 
Sadly enough, U.S. President Donald Trump claimed the school was hit by Iranian missiles. However, when documents emerged that the school had been struck by Tomahawk missiles, he claimed, without evidence, that Iran has such missiles. Although other countries like Britain and Australia also possess Tomahawk missiles, the U.S. is the only country involved in the current conflict known to possess them.

Elsewhere, in his address, the UN commissioner said, “In Iran, as the conflict has progressed, U.S. and Israeli attacks have increasingly struck densely populated residential areas and destroyed civilian infrastructure.”

The Education Ministry announced on March 25 that so far 644 schools and education centers in Iran has either been destroyed or suffered damages in the Israeli and U.S. strikes.

Director of the Iranian Red Crescent Society, Pir-Hossein Kolivand, recently confirmed that more than 85,000 civilian locations have been damaged or destroyed.

Israel, with the unequivocal support of the United States—a stance particularly pronounced during the Trump administration—has operated with a sense of impunity in pursuing its strategic objectives. Its primary aim appears to be the consolidation of its position as the preeminent technological and military power in the Middle East. In pursuit of this goal, its actions have repeatedly demonstrated a disregard for the laws of war, international legal norms, and the sanctity of human life. Concurrently, the United States, under the leadership of President Donald Trump at the time, displayed a consistent pattern of undermining international law, multilateral institutions, and the sovereignty of other nations.