The toll on civilians is mounting fast as the US-Israeli war on Iran continues.
14 hours ago
Caroline Hawley,Diplomatic correspondentand
Soroush Pakzad
Supplied
Parastesh Dahaghin was a young pharmacist killed in an explosion while she was at work.
Berivan Molani was in bed when debris from an air strike in Tehran struck her head.
For more than three weeks, Tehran and other cities have been pummelled by US and Israeli airstrikes - with thousands of targets hit across the country.
And reports of civilian casualties from these strikes are not limited to adults. Eilmah Bilki, aged 3, reportedly died a day after being injured in the western town of Sardasht.
The toll on civilians is mounting fast. Most of their stories will never be told.
But through the thick, black smoke of war and an internet blackout, small fragments of information are getting out of Iran. And the names of a tiny fraction of the civilian casualties of the US-Israeli war on the country are beginning to emerge.
Parastesh Dahagain had been in her pharmacy in Tehran's Apadana neighbourhood when the nearby building of an IT company that reportedly played a role in Iran's internet shutdown was struck, according to the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center.
Video posted online shows a mourning ceremony for Parastesh - framed pictures of her nestled among candles and flowers.
Her brother Poorya wrote on Instagram that his sister was just doing her job when she was killed.
He said the family had told her that Tehran wasn't safe but she had replied: "People need me, people have been wounded."
She told him: "They come to the pharmacy, and elderly people need their medication. I have to stay here and help my people."
"You were so noble," he added, in tribute.
Less is known about 3-year old Eilmah Bilki - whose photo was provided to the BBC by the Kurdish human rights group, Hengaw. The group said she had been severely wounded in US-Israeli airstrikes in early March and died a day later.
Hengaw
Berivan Molani – a 26-year-old lifestyle blogger who ran an online clothes shop - was an only child who had returned to Tehran from the safety of northern Iran just the day before she died, because she missed home.
Her family say they had no idea that Iran's minister of intelligence, Esmail Khatib, lived opposite them on Makouyipour Street in Tehran's wealthy Zafaraniyeh neighbourhood, according to Razieh Janbaz, a friend, posting on Instagram.
Night-time footage released by the Iranian Red Crescent shows rescuers removing fallen masonry to try to reach Berivan's trapped mother as she begs to know: "Is my daughter alive?"
Berivan had already been pulled out of the rubble, but her crush injuries were fatal.
"She was killed in her bed, right before going to sleep, during the missile attack on March 17th," wrote Janbaz.
Several of Berivan's neighbours were killed in the Israeli airstrike that targeted Khatib last week, said Janbaz, a former member of Iran's handball team who went to the area after the attack and found that all that was left of her friend's life was a pair of trainers lying on the street.
"This was a family who did everything in their power to protect their child yet in the end – without even knowing who lives in the house across from them – they lost her," she said.
The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) has so far recorded more than 1,400 civilian deaths, 15% of them children.
Kurdish human rights group Hengaw has identified 48 children and 10 adults killed in the school.
Hengaw expressed "grave concern" over rising civilian casualties.
Iran does not report its own military losses. HRANA reports at least 1,167 military personnel have been killed since the war began.
But even for human rights groups with strong contacts on the ground, gathering information on casualties is extremely hard.
Hengaw says Iranian border guards have been given orders to shoot people trying to use Iraqi phone and internet networks - which can sometimes be accessed close to the border between the two countries - as the regime tries to control both the population and the narrative of the war.
"It's a really heartbreaking situation for people," said Hengaw's Awyar Shekhi.
People are "terrified", she told the BBC.
There are government buildings in residential areas, he said, before adding that even a big city like Tehran has no civilian bomb shelters.
"It's dire."
The International Committee of the Red Cross says civilians are paying an "alarming" price for the war.
A Red Crescent worker, Hamidreza Jahanbakhsh, is among the dead, and several of its facilities have been damaged.
"International humanitarian law is clear: Civilians and civilian infrastructure must be spared from attack. Medical workers and first responders, as well as medical transport and facilities and humanitarian personnel must be respected and protected," said ICRC delegation head, Vincent Cassard.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has now verified more than 20 attacks on health care facilities, with reports of many more. It says at least nine health workers have been killed.
It classifies any collateral damage as an attack.
"It's not for us to determine if a strike was aimed directly at that facility or a facility next to it," says Ian Clarke, who is directing WHO's response to the war in the Middle East.
"It's an attack on health, and the onus is on the people who are pursuing a conflict to actively protect civilians and to protect and take the measures to ensure that the health facilities are not impacted."
"Any attack on health care is a breach of international law," he adds.
The US has previously said it does not target civilians and takes its obligations seriously.
The BBC has verified footage of several damaged hospitals, including the 17-story private Gandhi hospital in Tehran, close to the headquarters of the state broadcaster which was the target, a Red Crescent hospital in the town of Mahabad in western Iran, and a hospital in the southern port of Bushehr, from which babies in incubators were seen being evacuated on 3 March.
Just weeks after they tried to save the lives of injured protesters, doctors working in public hospitals are stretched and "extremely exhausted", according to Iranian surgeon Dr Hashim Moazenzadeh.
He is now based in France, but has been in touch with former colleagues in Tehran.
"The bombs being used are extremely large and we have a very high number of civilian casualties," he said.
Making an urgent plea, he added: "If you're bombing near places like hospitals, you have to prioritise their safety and protection."
The submission marks another step in one of Israel’s most unusual clemency proceedings, given that Netanyahu’s criminal trial is still ongoing.
Iran and its militias struck northern Iraq, killing five Peshmerga and wounding 19, as attacks on the Kurdistan Region escalate amid the wider Middle East conflict.
The defendants' lawyer asserted that they acted to "harm and deceive the Iranian enemy and should be awarded the Israel Prize for their contribution to the nation's security."
Iran Guards say will target Israel troops if Gaza civilians hit Iran’s Revolutionary Guards warned the Israeli military that its troops in the north and the Gaza Strip would be targeted “without any limit” if Israel targets civilians in t