Last week, Iran experienced an unprecedented wave of strikes that reached deep into its cities: targeting military commanders, intelligence chiefs, and residential neighbourhoods alike, in what analysts are calling a qualitative shift like the conflict with the United States and Israel.
The assault began on 13 March, when reports emerged of precision strikes on sites linked to Iran's military and intelligence infrastructure inside Tehran and its surroundings.
Damage was recorded in buildings adjacent to targeted sites, including locations associated with Basij militias and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its intelligence apparatus.
No immediate official statement was issued on casualties.
Still, the closure of major roads, heavy security patrols, and intense traffic movement around affected areas signalled that authorities were responding to a strategic threat unlike any seen before.
What followed was not a series of isolated incidents.
Over the days that followed, a distinct pattern emerged: strikes were no longer confined to military or intelligence sites but extended to civilian areas: hospitals, densely populated residential neighbourhoods, public squares, and traditional markets. Local sources reported partial damage to some of Tehran's popular bazaars, disrupting trade and compounding shortages in basic services.
The strikes also damaged road infrastructure near major squares, including Azadi Square and areas in southern Tehran, with partial electricity and water outages reported.
Authorities issued emergency evacuation orders for some districts and rerouted emergency services. Public buses and community gathering spaces were also affected, adding to the chaos and fear gripping the capital's population. Night of assassinations The escalation reached its peak on the night of 18 March, when Israel announced the execution of precision airstrikes on sensitive sites in Tehran. The strikes killed several senior officials, most prominently Ali Larijani, Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, and Gholam Reza Soleimani, commander of the Basij mobilisation forces.
The same strikes caused partial destruction of residential buildings adjacent to military sites, damaged electricity and water networks, and disrupted emergency response operations.
Schools and health centres in northern Tehran neighbourhoods sustained partial damage, forcing authorities to suspend classes and temporarily halt some healthcare services.
Mehdi Rezaei, 35, a resident of the Niavaran district, was in his home when the strikes began. "Everything shook," he said. "The sound was deafening, and the light from the explosions blinded me for seconds. In Niavaran, many buildings were partially damaged, while some smaller structures collapsed completely. I saw my neighbours rushing into darkened streets—children crying, women trying to protect the little ones."
Rezaei tried to reach his family elsewhere in the city. "The networks were down," he said. "What made it harder was seeing the hospitals overwhelmed with civilian casualties: people who had nothing to do with the military leadership. People here were not prepared to deal with this kind of trauma. Most of them have been living in constant fear since the attacks began, and the fear grows with every new explosion. We suddenly realised that the war had moved into the heart of our cities, not just to the frontlines."
In the northern districts, 28-year-old Narjes Saleh described the moment she understood the scale of what was happening. "We thought our homes were outside the danger zone," she said, "but the strikes that happened on March 16 changed everything. Precision missiles hit neighbourhoods in northern Tehran, several residential buildings were partially damaged, and some collapsed entirely. I saw friends who lost their homes completely, forced to take refuge with relatives or in temporary shelters."
"The most terrifying thing," Saleh added, "is not the material loss, but losing the sense of safety in our daily lives. Everyone in the neighbourhood was tense, with no confidence in their ability to survive. Fear has become part of our everyday lives." Hospitals under pressure Among the most disturbing dimensions of the week's violence was the impact on Tehran's medical infrastructure.
The Shahid Rajaei Hospital, the Shahrar Hospital, the Firoozabeh Hospital, and the Shahrara Laboratory were all affected by nearby explosions, forcing the suspension of some emergency surgical operations and the transfer of critical cases to other facilities.
Dr Sahar Najafi, 42, a physician at Shahid Rajaei Hospital, described the morning of 15 March in detail. "During the past few days, with the outbreak of precision airstrikes on Tehran, we witnessed an unprecedented state of chaos at Shahid Rajaei Hospital," she said. "A number of casualties were brought to us, some of them civilians from neighbourhoods near military targets, and others from security and facility guard units. The first explosion came in the early morning of March 15, when precision missiles struck part of the hospital building, causing partial collapse of the emergency wing. Dozens of patients were forced to evacuate to waiting rooms, while emergency teams tried to treat minor and serious injuries simultaneously."
The psychological toll was as acute as the physical.
"The most difficult thing was dealing with the psychological injuries of residents who had witnessed the bombardment and heard the sound of explosions," Dr Najafi said. "Some patients refused to stay inside the hospital, fearing it would be hit again, and we were forced to distribute them among neighbouring hospitals in northern Tehran. These strikes revealed the weakness of civilian protection even for hospitals, which are supposed to be safe havens. I felt helpless in the face of what was happening—not only because of the scale of the injuries, but because there were no pre-existing mechanisms to deal with this type of concentrated operation inside the capital."
Dr Ali Karimi, 50, at the Shahrar Hospital, described conditions on 17 March. "I never imagined I would find myself forced to evacuate a surgical ward at Shahrar Hospital because of direct bombardment of the capital's neighbourhoods," he described. "Although Shahrar Hospital is not designated for surgery, because of the war, we were forced to use it after many hospitals were bombed."
Around 2 p.m. that day, precision missiles struck the streets surrounding the hospital, causing partial collapse of an outer wall and damage to emergency infrastructure. "I saw with my own eyes how medical teams were forced to work under unprecedented pressure, with a shortage of equipment, while security teams continued their attempts to secure the area," the doctor recalled.
Dr Karimi said the impact on civilians was immense, particularly in densely populated areas such as the Niavaran neighbourhood and northern Tehran.
"Even staff members were not safe; some lost the ability to communicate with their families because of telecommunications blackouts. This experience made me reconsider hospitals' readiness to face concentrated, planned attacks," he added. "The strikes were no longer just against military centres, but against civilians, which dramatically increases the level of psychological trauma. Dealing with children and elderly people evacuated from collapsed residential buildings was extremely difficult. I feel that what happened was not merely a military attack, but a systematic operation to weaken the community's capacity to endure in the capital." Mass funerals On 19 March, Iranian authorities officially announced the death of Intelligence Minister Ismail Khatib, in what amounted to an unprecedented official acknowledgement of the strikes' impact on the country's security architecture.
Condolence statements named additional officials, confirming the breadth of the targeting. Local sources reported further damage to residential buildings in northern Tehran, with major roads paralysed by explosions, prompting civil defence units to intervene.
On 20 March, Tehran held large funeral processions for the dead, led by the funerals of Ali Larijani and Gholam Reza Soleimani, which departed from Revolution Square toward the Maaraj al-Shuhada cemetery in the presence of large official and public delegations.
The processions also included victims from naval crews, among them the crew of the destroyer Dana, suggesting the strikes may have extended to maritime targets.
Dr Farhad Mirzaei, 45, a human rights researcher based in Tehran , said what occurred over the past week represented a serious and legally significant shift.
"From a human rights perspective, what happened in recent days in Tehran and Iran as a whole represents a dangerous transformation in the nature of targeting," he said. "Targeting security leadership—such as Ali Larijani, Gholam Reza Soleimani, and Ismail Khatib was clear, but the more dangerous aspect was the striking of hospitals, residential buildings, and densely populated civilian neighbourhoods. This points to a clear violation of international laws relating to the protection of civilians during armed conflict."
Dr Mirzaei said his documentation indicated "dozens of civilian casualties as a result of the explosions, in addition to the destruction of part of the vital infrastructure, including health facilities, schools, and markets."
He stressed that "these operations are not limited to military pressure alone, but also aim at the psychological subjugation of the population, which makes their impact far broader than the direct human losses. There is an urgent need to monitor and document these events for presentation in international human rights reports, because directly targeting civilians constitutes a violation of international humanitarian law, and the executing parties must be held accountable."
Former Iranian diplomat Abbas Khame-yar offered a geopolitical reading of the week's events.
"What Iran has witnessed in recent days, the targeting of major security leaderships, represents a worrying escalation at the level of regional policy," he said. "The assassination of Ali Larijani, Gholam Reza Soleimani, and Ismail Khatib indicates that the adversaries are not content with confronting Iran on traditional battlefields, but are seeking to strike deep into the leadership directly. This creates a double dilemma: first, the loss of important strategic and field expertise; and second, its effect on the internal situation in terms of national mobilisation and security response."
Khame-yar warned that such targeting changes the rules of the game. " Iran needs to reassess its capacity to protect its leadership and vital centres," he said, "while simultaneously preserving internal security and civil society, otherwise the capital will be exposed to even greater escalation."
The pattern of operations across 13–20 March points to a multi-dimensional strategy: the decapitation of political and security decision-making through the killing of figures like Larijani, Soleimani, and Khatib; the targeting of military and paramilitary field leadership to degrade rapid-response capacity; and the deliberate targeting of civilians and critical infrastructure to generate broad psychological pressure and disrupt daily life.
The range of targets and methods: precision airstrikes, intelligence-led assassinations, and direct civilian impact, suggests a high degree of technical and intelligence integration, and an adversary capable of long-range planning while anticipating Iranian countermeasures and exploiting vulnerabilities in both security and civilian infrastructure. Iran's leadership now faces a dual challenge: protecting its strategic centres while maintaining civil security and reassuring a traumatised population.
The period between 13 and 20 March, 2026, may mark a watershed in the trajectory of the conflict: one in which military, security, civilian, and political dimensions are deeply intertwined, the threshold for the use of force has visibly dropped, and the path forward remains open to multiple scenarios: mutual escalation, attempts to re-establish rules of engagement, or a slide toward a broader regional confrontation . This story was published in collaboration with Egab .