WHO verifies over 20 attacks on healthcare sites in Iran since beginning of war

The United States and Israel have carried out multiple strikes on medical facilities during their war with Iran, with the UN's World Health Organisation (WHO) verifying more than 20 attacks on healthcare assets since the conflict began.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian this week called on international health organisations to respond to the strikes, including a recent attack on the century-old Pasteur Institute of Iran, which officials in Tehran say was directly targeted.

“Since March 1, WHO has verified over 20 attacks on health care in Iran, resulting in at least nine deaths, including that of an infectious diseases health worker and a member of the Iranian Red Crescent Society,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a post on X.

He added that “multiple attacks” on healthcare facilities had been reported in Tehran, with the Pasteur Institute having “sustained significant damage and was rendered unable to continue delivering health services.”

Tedros said the institute “plays an important role in protecting and promoting population health, including in emergencies”.

In recent days, US-Israeli strikes have also hit Iran’s health, education, and transport infrastructure, in what Al Jazeera described as a widening of targets beyond the military, security, and political sites struck in the early stages of the war.

Alongside the Pasteur Institute, the WHO chief identified the Delaram Sina Psychiatric Hospital and the Tofigh Daru facility—one of the country’s largest pharmaceutical producers—as having been damaged, though no casualties were reported at those sites.

“Iran manufactures 90% of the drug doses it needs and mainly imports advanced therapies,” said Esfandyar Batmanghelidj, a Sanctions Researcher and Founder of think tank Bourse & Bazaar Foundation, which studies economic policy in the Middle East and central Asia. “Companies like Tofigh Darou produce ingredients and precursors which can then be used to make a wide range of drugs domestically. The only reason you would hit this target is to try to limit medicine production in Iran.”

Meanwhile, Iran’s Mehr News Agency, citing the Iranian Red Crescent Society, reported a strike on a laser and plasma research facility at Shahid Beheshti University.

The Red Crescent further reported on X that one of its warehouses had been targeted, destroying “two-wheeled relief containers and two buses and relief vehicles”.

“Communities on all sides are already paying a heavy price since the escalation of hostilities. Humanitarian workers, ambulances, relief supplies and humanitarian facilities must be respected and protected,” it said.

As the Doha-based news agency points out, healthcare facilities are protected under the Geneva Conventions adopted after World War II.

According to the Iranian Red Crescent, 307 health, medical, and emergency care facilities have been damaged since the start of the US-Israeli offensive.

By Nazrin Sadigova