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The stream of wounded in Imam Khomeini hospital in Tehran had been steady since Friday. On Sunday evening it became a flood. A renewed wave of Israeli strikes on Iran’s capital overwhelmed the hospital’s emergency unit, turning it into what one doctor described as a “bloodbath”.
“It was a bloodbath. We were overwhelmed by chaos and the screams of grieving family members. Dozens upon dozens of people with life-threatening injuries, minor wounds and even bodies were brought in,” a doctor at the emergency unit of the hospital told the Guardian on Monday under condition of anonymity.
As fighting between Israel and Iran entered its fourth day, Iranian hospitals were receiving a surge of wounded people, overwhelming medical facilities and exhausted personnel. Medical staff described scenes of bloody chaos and an influx of injured people that has only seemed to grow as Israeli strikes increased in intensity.
“I’ve seen toddlers, teenagers, adults and the elderly alike. Profusely bleeding mothers were rushing in with their children injured by shrapnel,” the doctor said, adding that some parents did not realise they themselves were injured until they put their children down.
They rattled off a list of injuries: metal lodged in femur bones and the soft tissues of the hip joints, internal bleeding and severe burns. Many of those wounded had been nearby when an Israeli bomb dropped, peppering them with deadly shrapnel.
Fighting began after Israel conducted hundreds of airstrikes on Iran early on Friday morning, which it said were aimed at preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. Iran responded with a salvo of missiles and drones, and the violence between the two countries has escalated since.
Iranian authorities on Monday morning said 1,277 people had been taken to hospital across the country’s university hospital network – of whom 224 had died.
The doctor at the Imam Khomeini suggested the true toll was greater. At his hospital, more beds had been assigned to the intensive care unit while patients with minor injuries were being transferred to other clinics, he said.
Staff in the ICU had been instructed not to post any details about the number of wounded or dead on social media, and the rota was being monitored by department heads. A Tehran based-journalist said authorities had denied requests for information on the number of dead and wounded.
A spokesperson for the Iranian ministry of health, Hossein Kermanpour, said more than 90% of casualties were civilians. The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, claimed Israel was exclusively hitting targets belonging to the Iranian government.
“When we control the skies over Tehran, we are hitting these targets, the targets of the regime, unlike the criminal regime of Iran that targets our citizens and comes to kill children and women,” Netanyahu said during a visit to an airbase in central Israel on Monday.
Iranian ballistic missiles have hit military sites and residential areas alike, killing at least 17 in Israel, including three children.
Iranian authorities claimed Israel had bombed a hospital in Kermanshah, west Iran, injuring patients. A dramatic video showed a television anchor fleeing mid-broadcast as Israeli bombs appeared to hit the state TV station on Monday evening.
“There are many dead individuals, but I can’t tell who is who or how many there are. We don’t know which one of them was a regime officer – I am only looking to save the lives of as many as I can,” a medic at a city hospital in Karaj, west of Tehran, said under condition of anonymity. They blamed Israel for targeting residential areas, but said they felt the Iranian government had little regard for civilian lives.
The medical staff described witnessing children as young as four with limbs fractured from the force of nearby blasts. They were exhausted and had been asked to work back-to-back shifts as injured people continued to arrive from other hospitals.
“We haven’t had the time to eat or drink. I fear after this morning we are going to have more bodies coming in,” the medic said.
Iran reportedly asked Gulf states on Monday to petition Donald Trump to help mediate a ceasefire with Israel, but on the ground the conflict showed no signs of abating.
For medical staff in Iran, already stretched to their limits, the prospect of continued bombings was daunting.
“The past three days have brought back horrific memories,” the doctor at the Imam Khomeini hospital said. “It reminds me of visuals from the Iran-Iraq war. The injuries are terrifying and it looks like we are working in a makeshift hospital on a battlefield.”
