Fresh figures released by Human Rights Activists, a Washington-based group monitoring the conflict in Iran, suggest that the death toll across the country has reached alarming levels. The organisation reports a total of 578 confirmed fatalities, including 363 civilians and 215 members of Iran’s security forces.
Human Rights Activists, which previously provided verified casualty data during the 2022 Mahsa Amini protests, compiles and cross-references local Iranian reports with its own network of in-country sources to produce its estimates. Iranian authorities have not issued regular updates on the human cost of the ongoing conflict, and have in the past been accused of downplaying casualties. On Saturday, Iran’s Health Ministry acknowledged that around 400 people had been killed, with more than 3,000 wounded in Israeli airstrikes.
In a dramatic development following American airstrikes on Iranian nuclear sites, Israel’s Airport Authority announced on Sunday (22 June) that the country’s airspace would be closed to all incoming and outgoing flights. The authority attributed the closure to “recent developments” but did not specify a timeline for reopening.
The US strikes, carried out early on Sunday, targeted three major nuclear facilities in Iran — Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan — marking a significant intervention by Washington into Israel’s military campaign. The operation was seen as a high-stakes effort to weaken Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, amid warnings of a potential broader regional conflict. Iranian officials stated there was no indication of radioactive contamination at any of the targeted sites. State media quoted the country’s National Nuclear Safety System Centre, which reported that radiation detectors had recorded no release of harmful materials following the attacks.
“There is no danger to the residents living around the aforementioned sites,” the statement said. Earlier Israeli strikes on similar nuclear infrastructure also did not result in any detectable environmental radiation, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which has been monitoring the situation closely. Despite the lack of nuclear contamination, the mounting death toll and the US military’s entry into the conflict have raised grave concerns globally about the trajectory of this crisis and its potential to engulf the wider Middle East.
With inputs from agencies
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