US-Israel strikes target Iran's Pasteur Institute, hospitals
Get the Geopolitics newsletter
Daily geopolitics — wars, elections, sanctions, the diplomatic moves that move markets. Free.
- The US and Israel have struck multiple medical facilities in Iran since launching attacks on February 28, killing at least 2,076 people and wounding 26,500, according to the report.
- The Pasteur Institute of Iran, founded in 1920 in collaboration with the Institut Pasteur in Paris, was targeted on Thursday; the Iranian Foreign Ministry called the attack "heartbreaking, cruel, despicable, and utterly outrageous."
- Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, a heart surgeon, appealed to the WHO, Red Cross, Doctors Without Borders and physicians worldwide, calling attacks on hospitals and pharmaceutical companies "a crime against humanity."
- WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus confirmed two Pasteur Institute departments work closely with the WHO and that the agency has verified over 20 attacks on Iranian healthcare since March 1, killing at least nine people including an infectious disease worker and a Red Crescent member.
- Strikes since early March hit Tofigh Daru (Iran's largest pharmaceutical company, March 31), Delaram Sina Psychiatric Hospital (March 29, ~30 patients present), Ali Hospital in Khuzestan (March 21), Gandhi Hospital (March 2), and a Red Crescent warehouse in Bushehr province.
- UN Security Council Resolution 2286 (2016, adopted unanimously) condemns attacks on healthcare, yet the WHO recorded a record 1,348 attacks on medical facilities in global armed conflicts last year, killing 1,981 people — up sharply from 944 deaths in 2024.
Why it matters: With WHO verifying 20+ attacks on Iranian healthcare since March 1, including a vaccine-producing institute that supports national immunization for measles, hepatitis B, and tetanus, the strikes directly degrade Iran's public health capacity. The pattern also exposes a widening gap between UN Resolution 2286's prohibition on healthcare attacks and the record 1,981 people killed in medical facilities globally last year.
Ask SkimNews
