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← The June 2025 Twelve-Day War

Civilian Harm in Iran and Israel

Evidence rating: CONFIRMED for Israel; STRONG for Iran. Israel's toll is documented name by name: 28 killed, all but one civilians. Iran's toll is larger and less certain: Iran's government gave figures rising from 610 to 935 to at least 1,060; an independent Iranian rights group counted 1,190 dead, of whom at least 436 were civilians.

Wars are described by the targets hit. The people under them are harder to count. This page gives the counts from each side, says who produced each number, and names the incidents that killed the most civilians.

Go deeper (Level 4): Iran's death toll: who counted · The Evin prison strike · Children and named victims in Iran · Israeli casualties

In Israel​

The Times of Israel counted 28 people killed by Iranian missiles over the twelve days, "all but one of them civilians," with 3,238 people hospitalized and more than 9,000 displaced from their homes (Times of Israel, June 24, 2025). It also published the names and stories of each victim (Times of Israel, the 28 victims).

The deadliest incidents:

  • Bat Yam, June 15. A missile hit an apartment building and killed nine people, including three children (Times of Israel).
  • Tamra, June 14–15. Four women of one Arab-Israeli family were killed in their home (Times of Israel liveblog, June 15).
  • Soroka Medical Center, Beersheba, June 19. A missile struck the surgical wing. The ward had been evacuated the day before, which prevented deaths; the hospital later received more than one billion shekels to rebuild (Times of Israel).
  • Beersheba, June 24. Minutes before the ceasefire, a missile hit an apartment building and killed four people, including an off-duty soldier, his mother, and his girlfriend, inside safe rooms that took a direct hit (Times of Israel).

Two more facts about the Israeli side. First, the injuries and property damage were far larger than the death toll suggests: citing Israel's Health Ministry, the Israeli newspaper Maariv reported about 3,345 people treated for injuries and "more than 41,550 compensation claims," 32,975 of them for structural damage to homes and buildings (as reported by Palestine Chronicle, June 30, 2025). A Filipina caregiver hit in the June 15 attack later died, the Philippine Embassy in Tel Aviv said (DZBB, July 13, 2025).

Second, human-rights groups said some Iranian strikes were unlawful. Amnesty International said "the Iranian forces' use of cluster munitions during the '12 Day War' with Israel was a flagrant violation of international humanitarian law," firing "ballistic missiles whose warheads contained submunitions into populated residential areas of Israel." Amnesty's Erika Guevara Rosas: "Cluster munitions are inherently indiscriminate weapons that must never be used" (Amnesty International, July 24, 2025, as quoted in a Wikipedia mirror of the war article). Human Rights Watch, as paraphrased by an Iranian civilian-documentation site, found at least five Iranian ballistic missiles struck civilian homes 1.5 to 9 kilometers from military sites and called for war-crimes investigations (Civilians of Iran incident page). No court has ruled on either finding.

In Iran​

Inside the hospitals. The Guardian reached doctors in Tehran on day four. A doctor at Imam Khomeini hospital, speaking anonymously: "It was a bloodbath. We were overwhelmed by chaos and the screams of grieving family members," and "I've seen toddlers, teenagers, adults and the elderly alike. Profusely bleeding mothers were rushing in with their children injured by shrapnel." A medic in Karaj: "There are many dead individuals, but I can't tell who is who or how many there are. We don't know which one of them was a regime officer – I am only looking to save the lives of as many as I can." Iran's health ministry spokesman, Hossein Kermanpour, said more than 90 percent of casualties were civilians. The Guardian also reported that ICU staff "had been instructed not to post any details about the number of wounded or dead on social media" (The Guardian, June 16, 2025). Tehran has few public bomb shelters; residents sheltered in underground parking garages (Geneva Council for Rights and Liberties, June 26, 2025).

Israel's account of its targeting. Netanyahu, the same day at an Israeli air base: "When we control the skies over Tehran, we are hitting these targets, the targets of the regime, unlike the criminal regime of Iran that targets our citizens and comes to kill children and women" (The Guardian, same article). A senior Israeli official described the opening strike on commanders and scientists: "We eliminated 20 people there... we caught them in their homes" (as posted by @JewishWarrior13, June 15, 2025; the official is not named). Striking people at home is why families and neighbors died with them. Leaked minutes of Israel's security cabinet, posted by the head of the National Iranian American Council, quote Defense Minister Israel Katz arguing for striking "civilian national infrastructure that destabilizes the leader" (Jamal Abdi on X, September 2025; see The Leaked Israeli Deliberations).

The numbers come from several sources, and they differ:

SourceKilledNote
Iran's health ministry, June 16, 2025 (day four)224 dead, 1,277 hospitalized"more than 90%" civilians, per spokesman Hossein Kermanpour (The Guardian)
Iran's health authorities, during and just after the war610, then 627Civilians counted early, as reported by the Times of Israel; the ministry's end-of-war figure was 610 killed and 4,746 injured (easy-to-read.eu summary)
Iran's judiciary spokesman Asghar Jahangir, June 30, 2025935, including 38 children and 132 womenDid not separate military and civilian dead
Saeed Ohadi, head of Iran's Foundation of Martyrs, on state TVat least 1,060Said it could reach 1,100
HRANA, interim count around June 24–26974: 387 civilians, 268 military, 319 undeterminedAs cited by CBS News and the Geneva Council
HRANA (Human Rights Activists News Agency, US-based, critical of Iran's government), final1,190: 436 civilians, 435 military, 319 unidentifiedMore than 4,000 wounded

Sources: Times of Israel, June 30, 2025; Times of Israel, June 24, 2025; AP via Yahoo News, 1,060 figure; HRANA, "Twelve Days Under Fire".

The HRANA count is the most useful for an American reader because the group opposes Iran's government and has no reason to inflate Israeli-caused deaths. Its figure of at least 436 civilians is a floor. Children were among them: the Iranian rights group LDDHI, a member of the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), counted at least 20 children killed by June 17 (as cited on the Civilians of Iran incident page, which lists named victims such as Rayan Ghasemian, age 0, and Mohammad Ali Bahmanabadi, age 1, both in Tehran on June 13; that site is an advocacy project and labels its own list "Reported," not verified). The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights warned of "severe damage and civilian casualties in various areas of the capital Tehran" (OHCHR, June 2025, as quoted by the same site).

The deadliest incidents:

  • Evin prison, Tehran, June 23. Israel struck the prison complex where Iran holds political prisoners, dual nationals, and foreigners. Iran's judiciary said at least 71 people died, including staff, conscript guards, prisoners, and visiting relatives (France 24; CNN). Amnesty International, which has long documented abuses at Evin, said the strikes must be "criminally investigated as war crimes" (Amnesty International, July 2025). Israel has not been found by any court to have committed a crime there; Amnesty's position is a call for investigation.

  • IRIB state television, Tehran, June 16. The building was hit during a live newscast. IRIB said staff were killed; the IDF said the building was being used as a military "communication center" (Times of Israel; NPR).

  • Homes of commanders and scientists. Many of the opening strikes on June 13 targeted residential buildings where senior officers and nuclear scientists lived. Family members and neighbors died with them. The Times of Israel counted at least 15 nuclear scientists killed (Times of Israel).

  • Hospitals. Iran said Israel hit a hospital in Kermanshah (The Guardian); an Iranian civil-society site later published a report on damage to the Farabi Neuropsychiatric Hospital in Kermanshah on June 15 (Peace Mark, July 23, 2025). These are Iranian accounts.

The American strike on June 22 hit three nuclear sites away from cities. No civilian deaths from it were reported. The IAEA reported "some localized radioactive as well as chemical release inside the affected facilities" but "no report of increased off-site radiation levels" (Grossi, late June 2025, as quoted by Green Building Africa).

At the UN General Assembly on September 24, 2025, Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian held up a booklet titled "Killed by Israel" with photographs of Iranians killed in the war. In a translation of the speech relayed on X, he said the "airstrikes on Iranian cities, homes and infrastructure while negotiations were underway was a grave betrayal of diplomacy," which "martyred commanders, citizens, children, women and scientists" (as described by Grok on X; we have not opened the UN transcript). We have not independently verified the booklet's contents; it is Iran's framing.

After the bombs: arrests at home​

The war was followed by a crackdown inside Iran. Iranian police said they detained 21,000 suspects during the war, including 260 accused of spying (Wikipedia summary, citing AP, August 12, 2025). The US State Department warned Americans on August 1, 2025: "The Iranian regime is in the midst of a paranoid and unprecedented witch hunt for spies and regime opponents following its 12-day war with Israel... U.S. citizens should NOT travel to Iran!" (@StateDept_NEA). In September 2026 Iran's judiciary said it had executed a man convicted of passing missile-site intelligence to Israel during the war (Reuters, September 19, 2026).

False casualty claims​

Casualty numbers attracted fakes on both sides. A viral "Russian leak" claiming Iranian missiles had killed large numbers of Israeli generals and Mossad and Shin Bet officers had no official confirmation and conflicts with the documented Israeli toll of 28 civilians and one off-duty soldier (as noted by Grok on X). Footage of the June 15 Bat Yam strike was recycled in March 2026 as if it were new (same source, second reply).

Keeping the scale in view​

Compared with the second war that began in February 2026, the twelve days were small. In that war, a single strike on a girls' school in Minab, near Bandar Abbas, reportedly killed about 170 people, and Iranian deaths ran into the thousands. The United States and Israel denied deliberately targeting the school (Britannica, "What is Operation Epic Fury?"; Wikipedia, 2026 Iran war). See After the Ceasefire.

Status: Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel Katz, and Erika Guevara Rosas are alive, as far as these sources show. Unknown for Asghar Jahangir, Saeed Ohadi, Hossein Kermanpour, and Masoud Pezeshkian. Senior Iranian officials were targeted in the 2026 war, and the sources on this page do not establish whether each is alive today.

What a citizen can check​

  • Read the Times of Israel list of the 28 Israelis killed, and the HRANA report on Iran. Both are specific, named, and sourced.
  • When you hear a death toll, ask who counted it and whether they separate soldiers from civilians. Iran's official figures did not.

Sources on this page​

Last Updated: 2026-09-26

Research captures: twitter/t88__v1048.md, t88__v1049.md, t88__v1050.md, t88__v1051.md, t88__v1052.md, t88__v1053.md, t86__v1025.md, t86__v1030.md, t82__v973.md, t82__v977.md, t82__v981.md, t85__v1013.md, t87__v1037.md

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