TEHRAN: US and Israeli attacks have damaged at least 120 museums and cultural and historic treasures across Iran, the head of Tehran city council’s cultural heritage committee said on Friday.
“Historical buildings and cultural sites across various provinces were directly targeted and sustained serious structural damage,” Ahmad Alavi said. The targets included Saadabad Palace, the Marble Palace, Teymourtash House, and the UNESCO-listed Golestan Palace, which has been likened to Versailles in France.
Iran, whose history spans several millennia, possesses significant cultural heritage that has largely been spared from mass tourism.
Meanwhile a Norwegian aid group warned of the devastating toll of the war on Iranian civilians.
“Countless homes, hospitals and schools have been damaged or destroyed,” said Jan Egeland, head of the Norwegian Refugee Council. Nearly every neighborhood in Tehran had sustained damage, he said.
“Civilians are paying the highest price for this war — it must end,” he said. “If this war continues, we risk a far wider humanitarian disaster. Millions could be forced to flee across borders, placing immense pressure on an already overstretched region.”
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said more than 600 schools in Iran had been damaged or demolished and more than 1,000 students and teachers killed or injured.
“The aggressors’ targeting pattern ... leaves little doubt as to their clear intent to commit genocide,” he told the Human Rights Council in Geneva. The council was debating a Feb. 28 strike at an elementary school in the southern city of Minab that killed more than 165 people, mostly children.
