With U.S. and Iran ‘peace deal’ hanging in the balance, Airwars releases findings on 1,000 incidents of harm tracked across 14 countries
The economic impact of the Iran War has affected almost every citizen on the globe, but the devastating impact on civilians killed has often been overlooked. As the peace deal between the United States and Iran falters, Airwars is launching a conflict page documenting the extensive human impact of the deadly campaign.
Over 40 days, Airwars tracked every incident of reported civilian harm across the Middle East, including mass casualty events in Iran, civilians killed rushing to shelters in Israel, foreign nationals harmed in hotels in the Gulf, and seafarers under attack in the Strait of Hormuz.
Key findings:
Our tracking methodology underpins all our research. Our teams pinpoint through open source research moments in time and place where civilians have been reported killed or injured. Over the course of several months, we then publish each event in granular detail, as our teams undertake an in-depth exercise identifying casualty estimates, victim biographies and geolocating coordinates. Airwars will publish macro estimates of civilians killed once this full research has been completed. Tracking numbers may also change slightly over the course of our research, as our team either further disaggregate incidents by location or time or group events together as additional detail is found. Airwars’ conflict landing page contains the most up to date tracking numbers, updated daily.
Information gap
The Iran war saw attempts by all sides to restrict information – creating one of the most restrictive information environments of any recent conflict.
In Iran, there was a near total internet blackout, with arrests reported for those attempting to share images of U.S. and Israeli missiles with foreign outlets. As a result almost no content surfaced online from local citizens for much of the war.
Across the Gulf, despite hosting a large community of online international influencers, strict laws on ‘cybercrimes’ saw many of those posting about Iranian attacks on their social media platforms detained, with threats of deportation across the region. Similarly in Israel, news outlets reported tighter controls over citizens and journalists sharing images of missile interceptions, with the military banning filming of impact sites.
And in March, commercial satellite providers restricted access for journalists and humanitarian groups to their platforms containing up to date imagery on Iran, blaming security risks for NATO allies and partners.
As a primarily open source documentation organisation, this caused significant challenges for Airwars’ documentation and all estimates may be undercounts. Despite this, we were able to track close to 1,000 separate incidents across the region.
In Iran, the U.S. and Israel declared hitting more than 17,000 separate targets in 40 days – a rate of strikes near unprecedented in modern conflict.
Much of the world’s attention focused on two deadly attacks on the first day of the war – the Minab strike that killed at least 117 schoolchildren, and the strike on a sports hall in Lamerd that killed more than twenty civilians. Both incidents are published in Airwars’ public archive, with our research team working through hundreds of sources to identify victim names and biographies.
Airwars also recorded incidents involving civilians every day of the war, with 67 incidents tracked in the opening week. As many as 19 incidents of harm were recorded in a single day on March 23rd – the first day that Trump announced possible diplomatic talks, and following escalated U.S. threats on Iran’s energy infrastructure. This is among one of the highest number of casualty events recorded by Airwars in a decade of documentation, with the exception of Israel’s deadly campaigns on Gaza and Lebanon.
The last week of March then saw some of the highest number of harm events per day in the conflict, before a drop off in frequency ahead of the first initial peace agreement.
In at least 26 incidents tracked over the 40 days, Airwars’ research team found initial reports that more than ten civilians were killed. Given complexities in attribution of each strike to Israel or the United States, these early trends will be investigated and tested as Airwars carries out in-depth research into each event.
Consistent with these findings, Airwars’ monitoring data for Iran shows that civilians were often killed in strikes on residential areas, accounting for 147 out of the 297 incidents tracked by Airwars. Tehran bore the brunt of these attacks, with 87 civilian casualty events recorded in Tehran province – more than half of those reported in heavily populated areas.
Alongside the strike on a school in Minab, Airwars tracked civilians killed in at least 13 additional educational facilities. This comes in the broader context of reported attacks on more than 100 educational facilities across the country, as reported by Iranian activist group the Human Rights Activists News Agency.
As reported by the World Health Organization shortly before the April 8th ceasefire, the United Nations tracked attacks to more than 20 Iranian health facilities. Airwars recorded civilian casualties in at least 19 events involving health facilities and medical workers.
Iranian news and human rights agency, Human Rights Activists in Iran (HRANA), released a report in May 2026 listing hundreds of civilians harmed in Iran, putting the overall figure at least at 1,701 civilian casualties. A detailed annex provides granular information on those harmed across regions in Iran, with additional lists of military personnel also documented. Airwars’ published incidents will draw on this rich body of research and reflect those listed within the detailed annex where possible.
In line with Airwars’ methodology, our approach assumes civilian status unless we find evidence to the contrary. Many events tracked in Iran are complex, with the Iranian regime’s web of police, paramilitary volunteer forces and wider Revolutionary Guard all appearing to come under attack in the Israel-U.S. campaign. As we publish each event in detail, our civilian harm assessments will explain how we have come to combatant/non-combatant determinations, as outlined in our detailed methodology note.
In the first day of strikes alone, Airwars recorded a minimum of 186 civilians killed in Iran, at least 35 of whom were women and 119 of whom were children. A minimum of 32 belligerents were killed across four of these incidents, with at least twenty militant deaths recorded in the strike that killed Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei.
The extent to which the identities of victims are known varies from context to context. Privacy and data security laws, as well as social norms, may limit the extent to which the identities of victims of airstrikes and other forms of state violence are shared publicly. Despite the internet blackout in Iran, Airwars was able to determine the names of all but three of the 186 civilians reportedly killed.
Airwars’ sister project the Open Source Munitions Portal tracked more than 60 images of munitions in Iran during the war, including some of the most advanced munitions in the U.S. military’s arsenal. The portal’s archive proved pivotal in showing that the Minab strike was conducted by Tomahawk missiles – a U.S. made munition that Israel is not known to possess.
Civilians in Israel faced threats on multiple fronts during the campaign – from Iranian missiles and drones that breached air defense capabilities and Hezbollah rockets fired from southern Lebanon. In a number of cases, Airwars also recorded civilian harm amongst elderly populations injured while attempting to reach shelters.
Both Israeli and Palestinian civilians were harmed in the attacks, with events recorded across Israel and the occupied West Bank. Of the 128 civilian harm events in Israel tracked by Airwars, approximately a quarter were tracked in the north of the country, with Israeli officials telling news outlets in at least nine cases that the harm was caused by Hezbollah rockets. At least one incident of harm was also caused by Israel’s own forces, with an inquiry underway.
Airwar’s sister project identified a range of Iranian munitions used against populated areas in Israel. This included extensive use of deadly cluster munitions, which were reported to have broken through Israeli air defenses on multiple occasions killing civilians and damaging populated areas.
Initial reporting also indicated damage to ambulance and emergency services, as well as residential areas. The bombardment also caused fires in residential areas including in shelters. Israel’s ambulance service reported that 23 people had been killed during the war, while the ministry of health reported more than 7,000 people were wounded.
Among Airwars’ published incidents is the reported death of 32-year old Filipina Mary Ann de Vera. A caregiver working in Tel Aviv, Mary was reported to be on the phone to her husband when the connection cut out as a likely Iranian missile hit the building. Those she had worked for in Israel reached out to journalists after she was killed to ensure her full story could be told, noting that “she was a very special soul and a wonderful person”.
Civilian harm in the Gulf, Iraq, Syria and Jordan
Airwars tracked harm allegations across the region from Iran’s wider regional bombardment on its neighbours, with an estimated 6,400 missiles and drones fired by Iran at US-allied Gulf States, and harm reported across third countries as a result of interceptions.
In the Gulf, civilians were injured and killed when air defense systems engaged Iranian missiles, which swarmed across populated areas, as well as from direct attacks when missiles made it through to their targets. From injuries reported at Dubai international airport, to hotels in Bahrain, Airwars tracked at least one civilian harm event most days of the war. Official estimates across the Gulf varied to the extent that civilians were differentiated from combatants in reporting, with an overall death toll of 32 individuals shared by states.
Among those harmed were a number of foreign nationals, with Airwars tracking civilian harm allegations from local news outlets across the globe reporting on their citizens, including in Nepal, India and elsewhere.
In an incident on the first night of the war, Airwars documented the death of a 29-year old Nepali man named Dibas Shrestha, when a reported Iranian drone strike hit an airport on Abu Dhabi. Dibas had been working as a security guard, with coverage in the Kathmandu Post featuring testimonies from friends and relatives, who described him as “cheerful and sociable”, noting that he had expressed concern over the security situation on his Facebook account shortly before his death.
In Iraq, Syria, Jordan and as far as Azerbaijan, civilians were reportedly harmed either by direct attacks or by falling intercepted debris. In Azerbaijan, civilians were reportedly injured in a single drone attack on Nakhchivan, an autonomous enclave bordering Iran.
Airwars also tracked more than 21 incidents of harm in Iraq, as Iran-affiliated Popular Mobilisation Forces, US-allied Kurdish Peshmerga fighters, the Iraqi police and army all came under fire. Incidents of harm were also recorded as a result of fallen interceptions over the country. Health authorities put the death toll at 118, though it is unclear how many are civilians.
In Jordan Airwars tracked five civilian harm incidents, and a further 15 such incidents in Syria. In many of these cases Airwars’ sister project the Open Source Munitions Portal identified munitions debris across the region, including the remnants of an Iranian ‘kamikaze drone’ and ballistic missiles in Syria, and the engine of a U.S. made Tomahawk missile.
Incidents of harm in Lebanon have outpaced every other aspect of this regional theatre, with Israel’s continued Lebanon campaign a sticking point in the on-going peace negotiations.
Between March 2 and April 8, Airwars documented more than 470 incidents of civilian harm in Lebanon. This comes in the wider context of Airwars’ monitoring efforts in the country, where we have been capturing every event of reported civilian harm since Israel’s escalation in September 2024. After an initial ceasefire in November that same year, civilian harm events from on-going military actions continued to be reported. To date, Airwars has tracked more than 2,500 incidents of civilian harm.
During the initial April 8th ceasefire Lebanon’s position was uncertain, with Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif saying that Lebanon was included in the agreement, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said otherwise. On the same day that Israel, the US, and Iran entered the tentative peace agreement, the Israeli military announced that it had struck 180 “Hezbollah targets”. On the ground, civilians in Lebanon endured one the most brutal days of the war, with Airwars documenting 41 incidents of harm. The day came to be dubbed in Lebanon as “Black Wednesday.”
Strikes continued after the April 8 agreement, until a ten-day ceasefire was agreed on April 16; which was later extended for another three weeks. From April 8 through April 16, Airwars tracked 99 civilian harm incidents. By the second week of June, Airwars recorded a further 372 incidents.
In total, Airwars has recorded more than 950 incidents of harm in Lebanon since March 2, 2026 – making it the country with the most documented incidents of civilian harm in this war. Stories of those harmed can be found in our detailed public archive, where incidents will be released as soon as research is finalised.
Among the incidents already published is an assessment of a strike that hit a southern suburb of Beirut, killing an elderly couple and a small child in the early hours of March 2nd. Testimonies of the young girl Layal Rahal were posted by a Facebook group belonging to a local school, which described her as “a lover of knowledge” and of “friendship”.
Attacks on vessels were recorded across the Strait of Hormuz, the Gulf of Oman, the Arabian Sea, the Persian (Arabian) Gulf and as far as off the coast of Sri Lanka. These are among the busiest shipping lanes in the world, crowded with oil tankers, cargo ships, and the civilian crews who run them. Airwars tracked civilian casualties among vessel crews in eight attacks, with workers from countries across the globe accounting for most of the casualties. Each of these are published in the Airwars archive.
On several occasions, civilians were harmed aboard oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz. On one vessel hit in the Gulf of Oman, at least one Indian worker was reported killed, and Bangladeshi and Ukrainian nationals were among the injured.
One of the deadliest single incidents came on March 6th, when the UAE-flagged tug boat Mussafah-2 was sent to assist a container ship, which had been struck two days earlier and left abandoned and adrift as a hazard to navigation. As the tug worked to secure the drifting ship, survivors described two successive strikes that sank the vessel, in what resembled the maritime equivalent of a ‘double-tap’ attack (a deliberate targeting tactic on rescue workers after an initial strike).
The International Maritime Organization recorded four seafarers killed and three severely injured; the crew were nationals of Indonesia, India and the Philippines. Among them was Filipino motorman George Miranda, reported missing after the attack, whose last message to his wife read “Lahat ng ginagawa ko, sakripisyo para sa inyo,” or “everything I do is a sacrifice for you.”
Attributing each attack to one side is difficult. The open sea offers few of the clues provided by witnesses that help establish responsibility on land, and the munition fragments investigators use to identify a weapon are often lost to the water. Some of the vessels involved are civilian but carry ownership and management structures built to avoid scrutiny, which further clouds the picture. And as with many of the attacks in this campaign where air defences are engaged, it can be unclear if harm is caused by a targeted attack or due to wreckage from an interception. Read more about Airwars’ evolving methodology to track civilian harm at sea here.
Inadequate response
As parties waver over a peace agreement for the future, questions remain about accountability for harm caused across the region. Across the Gulf, Iran is unlikely to account for civilian harm caused, while those harmed by interceptions across countries like Syria have few options to pursue accountability.
In Lebanon, Israel’s continued bombardment of the country has led to consistent reports of harm, including in the days leading up to the June 17th peace agreement. President Trump publicly spoke out against Israel’s Lebanon campaign in June, saying “you don’t have to knock down an apartment house every time you’re looking for somebody, because there are a lot of people in those apartment houses, and they’re not all Hezbollah”.
Secretary Hegseth told lawmakers in April that “no military or country works harder at every echelon to ensure the protection of civilian lives than the United States military”. But as has been shown the world over, better protection of civilians comes hand in hand with robust mechanisms to account for and understand the civilian toll of past actions. The U.S. Commander overseeing the Iran operation, Admiral Cooper, told lawmakers that there was just “one active civilian casualty investigation from the 13,629 munitions” used in the Iran war.
Meanwhile the U.S. has adopted a posture of refuting harm allegations even in the face of reliable evidence to the contrary. Images of a Tomahawk missile taken in connection to the strike on Minab school were initially described by President Trump as possible Iranian munitions, even though the Iranian arsenal has no comparable capabilities. Similarly, U.S. CENTCOM rejected reports of the use of the uniquely American PrSM munition being used on a gym in Lamerd, noting that it did “not conduct any strikes within 30 miles” of the city. This statement stands in contrast to strike maps presented by Secretary Hegseth in press briefings days into the war, as well as analysis of munitions experts identifying the PrSM munition.
Airwars’ partner policy tool the Civilian Protection Monitor found that the U.S. had regressed across all indicators of best practice when it comes to civilian protection under the Trump administration. Almost three months after the end of the 40-day war, civilians are still waiting for answers.