The U.S. and Israeli bombing campaign in Iran has not only targeted schools, hospitals, children, residential buildings and other state infrastructure, but has now begun striking historical monuments as well. Reports have recently emerged that the historic Golestan Palace has been targeted and damaged in the strikes, while the Rushd Palace from the Safavid and Qajar eras in Isfahan has also reportedly been damaged. These are not accidental sites caught in the crossfire but places of heritage and beauty that have stood for centuries and form part of Iran’s historical memory.
Such incidents demonstrate how the traditional rules of warfare are increasingly being cast aside, replaced by the basest impulses and the crudest calculations of psychological warfare. We should not readily accept the familiar excuse that such destruction is merely collateral damage. The United States has previously claimed that certain strikes, such as the Tomahawk missile attack on a school, were the result of outdated targeting data. That explanation might be invoked in isolated circumstances. But monuments that have stood for hundreds of years cannot be dismissed as errors in modern targeting systems.
Nor is this phenomenon unprecedented. We saw this clearly when ISIS, a militant force supported by Zionist handlers, rampaged through Syria and Iraq. The group’s destruction of the ancient city of Palmyra and countless other archaeological sites erased artefacts dating back to Roman, Seleucid and even earlier civilisations. These were not merely acts of barbarism but attacks on memory itself.
What we are witnessing now follows a similar logic. The destruction of monuments, museums and historic architecture is intended to inflict a psychological wound that goes far beyond the battlefield. It signals that nothing — not even the past — will be spared.
Such actions must be called out clearly. When historical heritage becomes a deliberate target, the damage extends beyond national borders. The erasure of history impoverishes humanity itself, and the international community must recognise it for what it is: a calculated attempt to destroy not just a country’s infrastructure, but its civilisational identity.
