Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth warned that Tuesday would be the “most intense” day of US strikes yet, even as he blamed Iran for civilian casualties, saying its forces were firing missiles from schools and hospitals.
Speaking alongside Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Hegseth alleged that Iran was deliberately firing missiles from schools and hospitals, and described the country’s leaders as “desperate and fighting like the cowardly terrorists they are.”
“Iran is alone and losing badly,” he added.
Caine said US Central Command had so far struck more than 5,000 targets, destroyed more than 50 Iranian naval vessels and attacked several drone factories to degrade Iran’s autonomous weapons capability. He said U.S. forces had dropped dozens of 2,000-pound GPS-guided penetrating weapons on deeply buried missile launchers.
Ballistic missile attacks continued to decline, he said, adding that US forces and their allies in the region had been intercepting one-way attack drones using fighter jets and attack helicopters.
Hegseth said Iran’s neighbors had abandoned them and that their proxies – Hezbollah, the Houthis and Hamas – had been “broken, ineffective or on the sidelines.”
When pressed about civilian casualties, which included an attack that killed more than 165 people at an all-girls school, most of them girls, Hegseth pivoted instead to accuse Iran of moving rocket launches “into civilian neighborhoods, near schools, near hospitals, to try to impede our ability to attack.”
He added: “This is how terrorist regimes fight. They target civilians. We don’t.” He insisted that no nation in history had taken more precautions to prevent civilian deaths, although he acknowledged that investigations “take time.”
The Shajareh Tayyebeh Girls’ Primary School was attacked on the first morning of the campaign, 10 days ago, when around 170 girls aged between seven and 12 were in class. First responders told Middle East Eye it appeared to be a “double tap” hit at the school.
A preliminary US assessment found that the United States was “probably” responsible, possibly due to dated intelligence information that misidentified the site as still part of an adjacent IRGC naval base from which it had been physically separated since 2016.
Hegseth declined to comment on reports that Iran’s new supreme leader had been wounded, saying only that “it would be wise” for Iranian leaders to heed the president and renounce nuclear weapons. Mojtaba Khamenei was elevated to the position on Sunday after his father, Ali Khamenei, was killed in the first attacks of the campaign.
Hegseth was emphatic that this conflict would not become another indefinite, endless war in which the United States is entangled.
“This is not 2003. This is not endless nation-building,” he said. “Our generation of soldiers will not let that happen again.”
He explained that “the consequences will be in the interest of the United States” and added: “We will not live under a scenario of nuclear blackmail with conventional missiles that can target our people.”
Donald Trump, he said, “determines the final state” and “our will is infinite.”
Before the press conference, Trump told Fox News that he heard that Iran wanted to talk and that a negotiation with them was possible, although it depends on the terms. But days before, on Friday, Trump rejected any solution by publishing in Truth Social that “there will be no agreement with Iran except UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER.”
