From Gaza to Tehran, Palestinians and Iranians compare life under the bombs Submitted by Maha Hussaini on Tue, 03/17/2026 - 09:20 Residents of Iran and Gaza draw harrowing parallels as they see Israeli and US attacks destroy their homes, schools and hospitals A Palestinian boy rushes away from the site of Israeli air strikes on a six-storey building in the Saftawi neighborhood west of Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip on 19 August 2025 (Bashar Taleb/AFP) Off Civilians covered in dust. Blood-stained school bags. Hospitals turned into military targets. These stark scenes from the war on Iran mirror, many Iranians now say, those in Gaza they once watched on their screens. For Palestinians, the images from Iran are hauntingly familiar. Successive air strikes on civilian infrastructure. Scores of deaths. Scenes that force them to relive more than two years of genocide. “If this war continues for a few more days, nothing will remain of Tehran,” says Hamed, 31, speaking to Middle East Eye in the Iranian capital. “The scenes I see with my own eyes remind me of the films and photos that used to come out of Gaza. Back then, we never thought we might end up with a fate similar to theirs.” In Gaza, Palestinians say they saw this pattern long before it appeared in other parts of the world. “The genocide itself was a warning. Seeing Israel get away with crimes we never thought would be met with nothing more than timid condemnations suggested that the war would not stop here,” Muhammed al-Khaldi, a 32-year-old teacher from Gaza, told MEE. “Gaza was the testing ground where Israel pushed the limits of what it could do. Unfortunately, the world allowed it to act without restraint. Now, they [Israel] know they can commit similar crimes elsewhere.” School attacks in Iran and Gaza On 28 February, the first day of the war on Iran, a double-tap strike on the Shajareh Tayyebeh school in Minab, southern Iran, killed at least 168 people, including two first res