Israel Approaching Tehran Operations Like Gaza, Focusing on Civilian Infrastructure

Andy Corbley

Read Time:2 Minute, 45 Second

It’s day 6 of a regime change war that Israel has been seeking for more than 30 years, and the country’s targeting of urban Iran is beginning to seem eerily similar to that of Gaza, where the IDF systematically destroyed every hospital, school, and government building over the course of the siege that turned into a genocide.

Here too, stringers told Qatari news network Al Jazeera that 20 schools in Tehran have already been bombed, as well as several hospitals, but schools all over the country have reportedly been stuck, most notably a girl’s primary school in Minab where 175 people including dozens of children were killed, and another two in the town of Parand, southwest of Tehran.

Yesterday, journalists were able to hear from US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, whose unorthodox, Call of Duty-inspired language had morphed in the space of 48 hours from discussing sinking ships and targeting missile launchers to “death and destruction from sky all day long” falling onto Iran.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei complained of the language Hegseth used, comparing it predictively to the Nazis. Baghaei also accused the US and Israel of intentionally hitting civilian areas, and indeed the International Committee of the Red Cross/Crescent Societies have reported 1,230 Iranians have been killed in these strikes.

The Committee of the Red Crescent in Iran has recorded air and missile strikes on 104 separate civilian buildings, including 14 medical facilities. On Thursday, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a press conference that it has verified 13 attacks on healthcare in Iran. Israeli attacks have also destroyed the largest football stadium in Tehran, and a highway from the capital to Luristan.

“Our people are being brutally slaughtered as the aggressors deliberately target civilian areas and any location they believe will inflict the maximum possible suffering and loss of life,” Baghaei said on X.

“What we’re seeing in Iran right now is really a continuation, an extension of what Israel has been trying to do in Gaza since October 7th,” said Amjad Iraqi, a senior analyst at the International Crisis Group, told Al Jazeera, describing it as a shift from “mowing the lawn” to “burning the lawn,” referring to the pre-October 7th policy of just occasionally bombing militant positions in Gaza.

Similarities between Israel’s bombing of Gaza and Tehran are growing stronger.

In both cases, it appears Israel is using AI without any human oversight.

For instance, Israel has bombed a park in Tehran called “Police park.” It has nothing to do with the police.

But it appears… pic.twitter.com/vWBTHlIiNT

— Trita Parsi (@tparsi) March 5, 2026

Iranian Minister for Energy Abbas Aliabadi has advised citizens to conserve water and power if possible, as strikes have directly targeted water and electricity facilities.

Many of these reports come from public and private Iranian organizations, but during the genocide in Gaza, all sides came to accept the reports of the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry as accurate; American intelligence considered their reports of death totals to be routine underestimations. WaL