Two weeks into Operation Epic Fury, the death numbers change depending on who is speaking. Here is what independent investigators and health agencies have actually confirmed.
How It Started
On February 28, 2026, the United States and Israel launched surprise airstrikes across Iran in what Washington named Operation Epic Fury. The opening attack hit Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's compound in Tehran. Khamenei was killed. Dozens of senior military and intelligence officials died alongside him. Iran's state broadcaster, its parliament building, nuclear facilities, oil depots, and naval assets were all struck in the first 72 hours.
Iran retaliated immediately. Missiles and drones were launched at Israel, at US bases across the Gulf, and at allied nations across the region. The war has now been running for 13 days as of March 13, 2026. US Central Command says it has struck more than 6,000 targets inside Iran. The Strait of Hormuz remains contested. Iran's new Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, son of the slain leader, was elected on March 8 and has vowed to keep fighting.
The question being asked in hospitals, refugee shelters, and newsrooms is a simple one: who is actually dying?
The Numbers Game: Who Is Claiming What
This is where the picture gets complicated. There are four sets of numbers in circulation, and none of them agree.
What Trump said: Trump has referenced large death figures in Iran at various points, framing them mostly in the context of Iran's own crackdown on protesters who rose up against the regime as economic pressure and a collapsing rial intensified in early 2026. He has repeatedly insisted the US does not target civilians and that deaths are the regime's doing. His administration has not released a verified US-attributed civilian death figure from the war itself.
What the Iranian government said: Iran's official death toll as of March 11 stands at over 1,300 killed and 9,000 injured inside Iran. Iran's Deputy Health Minister Ali Jafarian told Al Jazeera that among those killed were 200 children and 11 healthcare workers, ranging in age from eight months old to 88 years. He said the majority were civilians at home or at their workplace when the strikes hit. Iran says more than 200 cities have been targeted, and nearly 10,000 civilian sites struck.
What independent human rights monitors said: The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) put the civilian death count at over 1,245 as of March 10. That figure comes from verified reporting on the ground and aligns broadly with the WHO assessment.
What the WHO confirmed: The World Health Organization verified 18 attacks on healthcare facilities in Iran since February 28, resulting in 8 deaths among health workers. It reported more than 1,300 deaths and 9,000 injuries inside Iran, with 29 clinical facilities damaged and 10 forced to close entirely. The WHO also warned of a new environmental hazard: toxic "black rain" from burning oil depots mixing with rain clouds over Tehran, creating contaminated precipitation that poses health risks to everyone, especially children and the elderly.
So the honest accounting looks like this. The Iranian government and WHO independently report 1,300-plus dead inside Iran in two weeks. HRANA's civilian-specific count is 1,245. Lebanon has seen over 570 additional deaths. Eight US service members have been killed, with around 140 wounded. At least 13 Israelis have died. Multiple Gulf nations have suffered casualties from missile debris and interceptions.
The US government has not released any verified civilian death count attributable to its own strikes. That gap in accountability is itself a data point.
The School Bombing and the Cover-Up
Nothing in this war has generated more controversy than the strike on Shajareh Tayyebeh Elementary School in Minab, a city in southern Iran's Hormozgan province. It happened on February 28, in the opening hours of the war. At least 168 schoolgirls and 14 teachers were killed, according to Iranian state media and confirmed by multiple independent investigations. Witnesses said the roof collapsed on students while they were still in class, around 10 a.m. Saturday, which is a working school day in Iran.
What followed was a case study in how accountability disappears in wartime.
Trump initially told reporters, without any evidence: "Based on what I've seen, that was done by Iran." His Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, standing right behind him, declined to endorse the claim. Hegseth said the Pentagon was "investigating." When Trump was later asked why he was the only person in the US government blaming Iran, he said: "Because I just don't know enough about it."
The evidence pointed in a clear direction. A video released by Iran's Mehr News Agency and geolocated by investigative group Bellingcat showed a Tomahawk cruise missile hitting an IRGC naval base adjacent to the school. Eight munitions experts interviewed by the Washington Post said the missile's shape matched a US Tomahawk. These missiles are used by only five countries: the US, UK, Australia, Japan, and the Netherlands. None of the last four are involved in this war. Iran does not have Tomahawks. Trump's claim that Tomahawks are "generic" and "used by Iran" was dismissed by military experts as false.
By March 11, a preliminary Pentagon investigation found the US was likely responsible for the strike. The assessment suggested a targeting error: the school had been partitioned from the IRGC naval base next door since 2016, but targeting data may not have reflected that change. A formal Pentagon office that handles civilian harm prevention had been drastically scaled back by Hegseth after he took office.
Israel denied involvement. The US investigation remains ongoing. No apology has been issued. Nearly all Senate Democrats wrote to Hegseth demanding answers. Republican Senator John Kennedy, a Trump ally, told CNN he believed the US was behind the strike. "We're investigating, but I'm not going to hide behind that. I think that it was a terrible, terrible mistake," Kennedy said. "The kids are still dead." Trump's response to the NYT's preliminary findings was: "I don't know about it."
Who Is Actually Suffering
The official narratives from Washington and Tel Aviv stress that strikes are targeting military infrastructure, nuclear sites, missile programs, and naval assets. Iran's IRGC leadership and nuclear scientists have been killed. Over 40 senior Iranian officials confirmed dead. Iran's navy has been severely degraded, with CENTCOM reporting more than 90 Iranian vessels destroyed.
But the evidence on the ground is not as clean as those briefings suggest.
Of the 1,300-plus killed in Iran, Iran's own health officials say the majority were civilians. The WHO has verified strikes on 18 healthcare facilities. The Iranian Red Crescent reported that as of March 7, over 6,668 civilian units had been targeted. Oil depots across Tehran have been set ablaze, causing a toxic smoke cloud over a city of 9 million people. The WHO issued a public health warning that contaminated "black rain" from burning fuel depots could cause long-term respiratory damage to the most vulnerable residents.
Inside Iran, people have been living through an internet blackout since the war began. Connectivity dropped to 4% of normal levels, according to NetBlocks. The government imposed this deliberately as it struggled to manage the news of Khamenei's death and the political transition. This means Iranians inside the country cannot fully access information about what is happening to them or the outside world.
Then there are the protesters. Before the war, mass anti-government demonstrations had already broken out across Iran, sparked by economic collapse, the devaluation of the rial, and rising prices. Iran's police chief has since warned that those seen as supporting "enemies of the country" will no longer be treated as protesters but as enemies. In other words, Iranians who oppose both the bombing and the regime simultaneously have nowhere safe to stand.
The Humanitarian Collapse
More than 100,000 people inside Iran have relocated within the country due to insecurity. The full displacement picture from inside Iran remains unclear because of the internet blackout. In Lebanon, where Israel has intensified airstrikes on Hezbollah alongside the Iran campaign, over 700,000 people have been internally displaced. Schools in Beirut are being used as shelters. Tens of thousands of people are sleeping on the streets or in cars.
The UN's humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher told the Security Council that Lebanon's crisis is "just one more consequence of a regional war that is spiraling out of control. War does not stay neatly within borders. It tears through markets, supply chains and food prices."
Dubai's Jebel Ali port, the Middle East's largest container terminal, caught fire after missile debris struck it on March 1. The International Humanitarian City in Dubai, which coordinates global disaster aid logistics, is struggling to function. Shipping containers now carry a $3,000 emergency surcharge. The World Food Programme has warned that supply chain pressure is pushing up costs across the region.
In Gaza, Israel closed all crossings on February 28 when the war started. Aid volumes have fallen well below what is needed. Gaza residents are facing rising food prices and medical shortages. The WHO said about 200 trucks per day were entering Gaza, against the 600 needed daily.
The region was already home to 25 million displaced people before this war began. Every number is getting bigger.
Editorial View · Santhosh Vishwamitra
The Numbers Tell One Story. The Children Tell Another.
This war is being presented by Washington as a surgical operation against a terrorist regime. The evidence suggests something more complicated. A school full of girls was destroyed by what every piece of available forensic evidence says was a US Tomahawk missile. The Pentagon's own preliminary investigation points to the same conclusion. And Trump's response was to first blame Iran, then claim he didn't know enough about it, then say Tomahawks are generic weapons used by Iran. None of those things are true.
The Iranian regime is not a victim anyone should romanticise. It has killed its own protesters, built nuclear infrastructure in secret, and funded proxy violence across the region for decades. But those facts do not make the 168 dead schoolgirls in Minab any less real. The civilian death toll in this war is on every party involved. Blaming the victims or hiding behind "investigations" while refusing to issue even a basic acknowledgement of what happened is not leadership. It is the first chapter of a cover-up.
The Bottom Line
Over 1,300 dead in Iran. Thirteen health facilities shut down. At least 168 schoolgirls killed by what every independent investigation says was a US Tomahawk, with no apology issued. The question of who is suffering in this war has a clear answer. It is ordinary people, on every side, who had no say in starting it and no power to stop it.
Santhosh Vishwamitra ·
March 13, 2026
Founder, SVM Labs. Writes on geopolitics, global affairs, and power. For his work on web development and writing, visit santhoshvishwamitrablog.wordpress.com.
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