The USA and Israel Can’t Stop Committing War Crimes in Iran and Lebanon
War crimes, two words that the U.S. media consistently ignore when the perpetrators are the USA and Israel, but are the two words that we need to focus on, as war crimes seem to happen every day now in Iran and Lebanon. International law only matters when we can hold everyone to the same standard, but that standard never seems to apply to the USA or Israel.
We’re not watching a war where we can argue about the presence of war crimes, from attacks on schools to the use of white phosphorus, there is little to argue about.
Today, we are aiming to show you that these war crimes are not simply mistakes made by individual soldiers or commanding officers, but that they are entirely systematic. It is evident that these two nations have entirely dismissed international law int their already illegal assault on Iran, and it’s long passed time that the U.S. media does what a media should, hold power to account.
Nine Days. Six Thousand Six Hundred Sixty-Eight Civilian Sites.
Since the US and Israel launched Operation Epic Fury on February 28, Iran’s Red Crescent Society has documented 6,668 civilian sites struck. The likelihood that you can accidentally hit almost 7,000 civilian sites, which are protected under international law, in 12 days of war is zero, it cannot be a coincidence that so many civilian sites have found themselves the victims of US-Israeli attacks. Beyond the sheer coincidence that would be necessary to dismiss this point, the two nations have shown that they are more than willing to dismiss the value of human life, as we have all seen in the genocide perpetrated against Palestinians in Gaza.
In a girls’ primary school in Minab the USA murdered One hundred eighty dead people, most of them children between the ages of 8 and 12 years old. Human Rights Watch confirmed it with satellite imagery. This attack occurred in the very first wave of attacks by the USA and Israel, and a preliminary investigation has shown that a U.S. tomahawk was behind the attack. While pro-war channels and social media accounts have attempted to claim the attack came from an Iranian rocket, Iran had not yet launched a counterattack at the time of the massacre. We should not need to point out that attacking schools is a gross war crime, but if you needed to be told as much, now you have.
Just days later, the USA and Israel’s campaign of bombardment targeted two other schools in the town of Parand, thankfully, we did not see the death toll of the first school strike repeated in either case. Precision missiles do not hit 3 separate schools in 12 days by accident.
Hospitals and medical centres have also found themselves at the other end of join U.S.-Israeli strikes, in one case, newborn babies had to be evacuated from Gandhi Hospital in Tehran after such an attack. The illegal attacks have so far targeted at least thirteen medical facilities, at least four healthcare workers killed. The Red Crescent has also reported that nine of their facilities have been hit, showing a systematic targeting of the healthcare industry in Iran, which is yet another serious war crime.
The US attacked a freshwater desalination plant on Qeshm Island, cutting water to thirty villages. Iran’s Foreign Minister called it a “blatant and desperate crime.” Under international humanitarian law, he’s right, no notes.
A US submarine sank an Iranian frigate in the Indian Ocean off Sri Lanka, thousands of miles from any combat zone. The first US submarine torpedo kill since the Second World War. Dozens of Iranian sailors killed, and war crime scholars are debating exactly how legal the aftermath of the strike was, as the submarine left the area, allowing many of the survivors to drown.
The strikes on Tehran also hit the Golestan Palace, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of Iran's most significant cultural monuments, dating back to the Qajar dynasty. Attacking cultural heritage is a war crime under the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, as well as under the Rome Statute. Such attacks are the deliberate erasure of a people's history and identity, and it is illegal under international law. If we condemned ISIS for this, we must also extend that condemnation to all who commit the crime.
This all in just 12 days of an unprovoked war, and we may not yet know the full extent of the war crimes in Iran.
And Then There’s Lebanon
The war crimes do not stop at Iran’s borders. Since Israel launched their new invasion and attack of Lebanon, we have seen the war crimes expand into another country.
Human Rights Watch has now confirmed that Israel used white phosphorus in Lebanon. White phosphorus burns at 815 degrees Celsius, it cannot be extinguished with water, sticks to skin and use in civilian areas is banned under international law.
The targeting of civilian buildings in both Iran and Lebanon is not a series of accidents. It is a pattern. And patterns have a name under international humanitarian law.
Does The Law Even Matter?
Article 8 of the Rome Statute is essential to a stable world, and no nation should have an exception. Deliberately attacking schools, hospitals, humanitarian facilities, UNESCO heritage sites and civilian infrastructure are war crimes. If we cannot recognise as much in the media, then the public cannot be informed of this, and eventually, the reality of these crimes are diluted.
This is not a grey area, nor is it contested legal territory. The law exists, we hold it up when ISIS abuse it, or when Russia attacks. Nowhere in the agreements that shape international law can we read that it applies only to enemies of the USA. However, in reality, we do not live in a world that has shown a willingness to hold the USA accountable.
If Russian submarines were sinking ships in international waters, leaving survivors to drown, American media would be screaming. If Russian missiles had killed over one hundred and sixty schoolgirls, it would dominate headlines. If Russia had struck thirteen hospitals, nine Red Crescent centres, and a civilian water supply, every major outlet would be running the words “war crimes” in their headlines.
We know this because we watched it happen with Ukraine. American media applied international law consistently, rigorously, and correctly to Russia’s actions.
That standard doesn’t disappear because the bombs are American and Israeli.
This isn’t new either. The United States has used its Security Council veto forty-nine times to shield Israel from international accountability. According to the USA’s position in the UN, settlements, sieges and the bombardment of civilian populations are crimes that deserve a free pass. The US has spent decades ensuring Israel faces no consequences for breaking international law, while demanding any of their geopolitical enemies follow those same rules.
What we’re watching now is the logical endpoint of that impunity. You protect a country from consequences long enough, and it stops thinking consequences apply to it at all.
Americans Deserve to Know
If you are a U.S. citizen, this war is being fought in your name, even if you oppose it. With your money, with American bombs, American submarines, American political cover, this is your war, even if this isn’t your government. The perception of politics locally do not translate onto the world stage, your opposition to Donald Trump does not change who Iranians believe are attacking.
American taxpayers are funding the strikes on those schools and hospitals, despite the falling approval rate of the man in orange.
The idea of journalism is to tell you this. To name what is happening, to hold truth to power, and to stand by the truth no matter what. We have to apply the law equally regardless of who is breaking it. If the media won’t do that—if it will call Russian attacks on civilian infrastructure war crimes but not American ones—then it isn’t journalism, it is propaganda.
International law only works if it applies to everyone. The moment powerful states get a pass, the whole framework collapses. And a world without enforceable international law is a world where the only rule is force. Is this really the world we all want to live in?