Iran calls for global response to recent attacks on healthcare and education targets

Hospitals in Iran Damaged by US and Israeli Strikes

Multiple hospitals across Iran have been affected by air strikes attributed to the United States and Israel. Authorities have reported damage to several medical facilities, with some sources indicating that no direct hits on hospitals have occurred yet.

The Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has issued a statement calling for international action and solidarity in response to the attacks. The ministry’s spokesman, Esmaeil Baghaei, stated that both countries “continue to indiscriminately strike residential areas, sparing neither hospitals, schools, Red Crescent facilities, nor cultural monuments.”

Pir Hossein Kolivand, head of the Iranian Red Crescent Society, has written a letter to the president of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), demanding an explicit condemnation of attacks on children’s centers and medical facilities. The ICRC President, Mirjana Spoljaric, has reiterated that rules of war must be upheld, with civilian infrastructure such as hospitals and schools being spared from attack.

Multiple Iranian hospitals have been evacuated due to damage caused by air attacks. Footage circulating online shows significant damage at Gandhi Hospital in northern Tehran, which appears to have been damaged after an Israeli military strike on nearby buildings housing state television’s Channel 2 and a communications antenna. The hospital’s in-vitro fertilization department was reportedly destroyed, forcing staff to move cells and embryos.

The World Health Organization has expressed concern over reports of damage to hospitals, with Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus stating that the incident is “extremely worrying”. The United Nations agency is working to verify the incident.

Source: Al Jazeera