Faces of the fallen: the innocent lives snuffed out in Israeli attacks

Israel’s twelve days of air attacks on Iran killed hundreds of civilians—among them an eight-year-old gymnast in a red dress whose last joyful dance has become a symbol of the war’s human cost.

A video posted on Instagram by a relative appears to show Tara Hajmiri dancing in a dentist’s office. Her black ponytail sways behind her as she beams with joy and glides toward the treatment chair. Hours later, her short life was over.

Tara died alongside her parents when Israeli missiles struck three six-story residential buildings on Patrice Lumumba Street in central Tehran in the early hours of June 13.

Her father, an estate agent, and her mother were found in the rubble. Israel's military later said the buildings were targeted to eliminate an unnamed nuclear scientist.

Tara's name spread quickly across Iranian social media, where she came to represent innocence lost in war.

The war's youngest victim appeared to be Rayan Ghasemi, a two-month-old infant, who succumbed to burn injuries after an Israeli strike on June 19.

His parents, Behnam Ghasemian, an engineer, and Dr. Zohreh Rasouli, a gynecologist, were also killed. His older brother, Kian, remains hospitalized with serious injuries.

A poet’s last verse

Another victim whose story and face became an instant icon was 23-year-old Parnia Abbasi—a poet and English teacher who loved Coldplay, Italian food and mountain climbing.

She was one of the very few to grab attentions outside Iran, her smile and her verses touching hearts.

Her family said she often wrote about love and longing. One poem, Returning to You, was widely shared after her death:

You crash upon my shore

the rhythmic pearl of your body bursts across the sand

I row toward your embrace

cast your smile like a hook

The fish are caught and I fall in love

all over again.

Parnia was killed with her entire family—father Parviz, a retired teacher, mother Masoumeh, a retired bank clerk and 14-year-old brother Parham—when their building was leveled.

Israeli authorities later said the intended target was Abdolhamid Minouchehr, head of nuclear engineering at Shahid Beheshti University.

Hundreds More

Another victim, graphic artist Saleh Bayrami, was killed while waiting in his car at a traffic light on June 15, en route to a job interview. The strike near Tehran’s Tajrish Square killed several others.

Iran’s Health Minister Mohammad Reza Zafarghandi said on June 23 that 606 people had been killed, without specifying how many were civilians.

Independent tallies put the toll higher—1,190 according to the US-based human rights group HRANA, which reported military deaths just above 400, with the rest either civilian or yet to be determined.

The Israeli government has defended its actions as pre-emptive strikes on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure. But the deaths of Tara, Rayan, Parnia, and Saleh have sparked grief—and questions.

Their names stand for the civilians caught in the crossfire of a conflict paused for now, but which could return with a vengeance at any moment.

Their faces—once full of promise—have become symbols of loss, of questions unanswered, of the cost of ideology and war.