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Airwars Assessment
At around 8 PM on Sunday, June 15, 2025, at least five people were killed and two people were injured in a declared Israeli airstrike on a five-story building in the Sabunchi neighbourhood of Tehran. Among those killed were 26-year-old Hasti Valizadeh, 45-year-old Tabassom Pak, and 52-year-old Majid Vafaei. Another woman, Sahar, was among those injured, suffering injuries to her leg and chest. Mohammad Kazemi, head of the IRGC Intelligence Organization, was also killed in the strike.
Iranian media reported the civilian casualties resulting from the declared strike on Kazemi. According to the Iranian Broadcasting Corporation, “martyrs and wounded in this attack have been recovered from the rubble” in the Sabunchi neighbourhood. At 5:21 p.m., @FarazDaily reported that “5 martyrs and injured people have been retrieved from the rubble so far.”
Hasti Valizadeh was born in Pol-e Dokhtar and was six days away from her 27th birthday when she was killed. Her father died when she was ten years old, and her mother raised two daughters largely alone. Speaking to Voice of Iran, Hasti’s mother tearfully remembered her daughter Hasti, who was her “whole joy.”
“She was such a caring and cheerful girl. From the time she understood life, she would say, ‘Mom, I want to go to work and help you.”
Hasti’s mother said that Hasti worked at a stationary company, leaving early in the morning and coming home exhausted in the evening, but still helped her mother with housework.
Thinking of the strike that killed her daughter, Hasti’s mother said “My daughter was not military, and that shop was not storing IRGC equipment. She was just a hardworking girl trying to make a living. Now instead of seeing her smiles, I have to come to the martyrs’ cemetery in Yaftabad and stare at this white gravestone.”
According to Hem Mihan Newspaper, “Tabassom Pak, 45, was returning from work…to hug her 17-year-old daughter and tell her not to be afraid of the sound of war” when she was killed in the strike on Sabunchi Street. In an interview with the paper, Tabassom’s surviving family members explained that she had died from a “wave of explosions and debris falling on her car.”
In an interview with Hammihan Online, a woman named Sahar recounted the harrowing details of her escape and efforts to evacuate her 78-year-old mother from the ground floor of their building after the strike. As Sahar explained, “We were living a normal life when suddenly there was an explosion. There was smoke, darkness, fire, and dust. There was also gas, so you couldn’t breathe. We were all trapped.” Stuck underneath rubble and further impeded by chronic health challenges, the two women finally managed to escape the shattered building, though their car and other belongings were destroyed. Once they reached the hospital, “glass was removed from Sahar’s body, and she had eight stitches on her leg and four stitches on her left chest.” Though Sahar and her mother are grateful to be alive, they lamented the ineffectiveness of the state in helping them to rebuild their lives in the aftermath of the bombing.
A post from @adlname_ir on Instagram reported Majid Vafaei, a lawyer, was on his way to his office on Sabunchi Street when he was killed by the strike. 57-year-old Majid was reportedly born in the village Meighan and was a veteran of the Iran-Iraq war where he was 70% wounded. Majid’s funeral was held from the Basij Youth Center to Bahman Street in Shahrood, and he is survived by a son.
Defense Press added after Majid’s military service and retirement in 1984, he earned a bachelor’s, master’s, and doctorate degrees in international law from the University of Tehran and had 30 years of experience as a lawyer representing “warriors and the families of the martyrs.” According to Fast News, Majid also provided free legal advice to other veterans. @adlname_ir specified that he was a member of the Central Lawyers Association.
Commenting on his early life, Holy Defense News Agency wrote that Majid “completed his primary and secondary education in the village and was sent to the southern front in his third year of secondary school with other Basij members.” While members of the Basij are considered militants given that it is a branch of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Force (IRGC), an armed state group, given that the source dates Majid’s Basij activitiy to secondary school, coupled with the fact that it is known that he was engaged in military service but retired, the reference has not led Airwars to contest his civilian status. This will be updated should additional information become available.
Fast News provided a different account that Majid had been returning to his home when he was killed on Sohravardi Street in Tehran. Still, given that others reported that he was killed on Sabunchi Street, his death has been recorded in this incident. This will be updated should additional information become available.
Under International Humanitarian Law, civilians are protected against attack “unless and for such time as” they directly participate in hostilities. As Majid reportedly retired from military service in 1984, it is not understood that he was participating in hostilities at the time of the strike, and has been recorded as a civilian. This will be updated should additional information become available.
According to the statement by the Israeli Defense Forces posted to Telegram on June 16, 2025, Mohammad Kazemi was killed on June 15 in Tehran, in a strike carried out by Israeli Air Force fighter jets. Mohammad Kazemi, along with his deputy, reportedly “played a central role in shaping Iran’s strategic assessments and planning terrorist attacks against Israel, the West, and countries in the Middle East.” The Israeli military also stated that Kazemi “had been responsible for counterintelligence, espionage, and targeting opponents of the Iranian regime within Iran, oversaw intelligence gathering for terrorist activities and the monitoring of Iranian citizens to suppress dissent and preserve the Iranian regime.”
Kazemi’s death in the strike on the Sabunchi neighbourhood of Tehran was first officially announced on July 8 by Alireza Zakani in the Tehran City Council. On the day of the bombing, @iranwire reported that “the Intelligence Ministry’s surveillance office on [Sabunchi] street was targeted by the Israeli attack.” The same day, Twitter/X-user @siamak_tadayon posted that “the Ministry of Intelligence’s follow-up office has been blown up… Perhaps many have been summoned here and have bad memories. Anyway, it no longer exists.” Based on this confirmation of Kezmi’s militant status, he has been counted as a militant and is not included in civilian harm tolls.
At 1:58 p.m. local time, Twitter/X user @AnoosheFrm posted an image of a thick cloud of smoke billowing in the sky and wrote that she just “saw them hit Sabounchi in front of my eyes, and all the glass around us was shattered.”
Twitter/X user @hnoori59 posted similar images of a thick cloud of smoke over residential buildings, noting that there are photos of the Israeli attack on a street in Sabunchi, Tehran. @iranwire posted a video showing the immediate aftermath of the attack, with onlookers gathering near the effected building amidst the lively traffic.
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Geolocation Notes
Reports of the incident mention Sabunchi Street (خیابان صابونچی) in the Sabunchi neighbourhood (محله صابونچی) in District 7 (منطقه ۷) in Tehran (تهران), for which the generic coordinates are: 35.733303, 51.432574. Due to limited satellite imagery and information available to Airwars, we were unable to verify the location further.