By Humaira Ahad / PRESS TV

In the early hours of June 24, the stillness of Astaneh Ashrafieh, a small town nestled in Iran’s northern Gilan province, was shattered by the deafening roar of Israeli airstrikes.

Around 1:10 am local time, the Zionist regime unleashed missiles on a civilian home, reducing the modest dwelling to smouldering ruins.

Following the act of aggression, rescuers pulled 15 bodies from beneath the rubble, including grandparents, sleeping children, and entire families wiped out in an instant.

Among the killed was Dr. Seyed Mohammad Reza Sedighi Saber, one of Iran’s accomplished nuclear scientists whose career had been defined by peaceful scientific progress.

He was visiting his ancestral home when the Israeli regime carried out a terrorist attack in the civilian neighbourhood in northern Iran.

The nuclear scientist had already survived an assassination attempt just days earlier. On June 13, Israel bombed his residence in Tehran, killing his 17-year-old son, Hamid Reza. After burying his son in his hometown of Astaneh Ashrafieh, Dr. Saber moved to his in-laws' home.

Eleven days later, Israeli warplanes struck again, targeting the house where he was staying.

The regime’s act of aggression killed at least 15 civilians and injured 33 others. Among the martyred were Seyyedeh Mahya Sedighi Saber, Seyyedeh Fatemeh Sedighi Saber, Zahra Saber, Mousa Saber, Soltanat Hosseinpour, Yas Saber, Milan Saberand Hamed Saber — all members of one family.

Others included Mahsa Ahmari, Amir Ali Chatr Anbari, Ahmad Lotfi Rad, Rouhangiz Farhang Mohini, Shahrebanu Pour Ramazan, and Mojtaba Mohammadpour.

Hamed Saber, an employee of Iran’s Ports and Maritime Organisation in southern Hormozgan province, was killed along with his wife, 7-year-old son, elderly parents, sister, her husband, and their child.

All the victims were civilians, including government employees, children, and elderly family members.

Pouria Koulivand, deputy of Iran’s permanent representative to the International Maritime Organisation, exposed the brutal killing of his colleague by the Zionist regime.

“The horrific attack took place in the dead of night on a quiet residential building in a small city in northern Iran, far from any military or nuclear installations,” he said, emphasising that “the target of the attack was a private house where innocent civilians were sleeping.”

Koulivand condemned the Zionist regime for once again demonstrating its complete disregard for moral, religious, and humanitarian values, as seen previously in Gaza.

He said that the “repeated targeting of women, children, and innocent civilians reveals a deep-rooted pattern of cruelty that has unfortunately been made possible with the support of some countries.”

Two months before his death, Dr. Hamed Saber was placed on the US Department of the Treasury’s sanctions list. No charges were ever filed, exposing the inhuman and misleading nature of the US sanctions, which lack any legal foundation and serve only as a pressure tactic against Iran.

The June 24 terror attack was one of the deadliest incidents in Israel’s 12-day aggression on Iran that killed more than 627 people and injured 4,870 others.

“Since the start of Israel’s war against our nation, 163 women have been injured, and 44 women have been martyred, two of whom were pregnant mothers who lost their lives along with their unborn children. Among the war’s martyrs are 13 children, the youngest of whom was just two months old,” Hossein Kermanpour, head of the Public Relations and Information Centre of Iran’s Ministry of Health, said about the death toll.

Israel and its Western allies, particularly the US, falsely claimed their aggression on Iran targeted only military and nuclear sites.

In reality, residential buildings, hospitals, ambulances, energy infrastructure, and public institutions were hit. This was no accident or miscalculation but a calculated act of brutality.

In Gilan, where the bodies of fifteen victims now rest beneath the soil, the attack stands as a stark reminder of the human cost of Israel’s unprovoked, brutal and unlawful aggression.