Iran’s president urges global health bodies to act after US-Israeli strike on Pasteur Institute in Tehran

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian called Thursday on international health organizations and doctors worldwide to respond to what he described as a “crime against humanity” following attacks on medical facilities in Iran.

“What message does attacking hospitals, pharmaceutical companies and the Pasteur Institute (of Iran) as a medical research center in Iran convey?” Pezeshkian said on the US social media company X’s platform, referring to strikes that reportedly hit the Pasteur institute of Iran in Tehran.

“As a specialist physician, I urge WHO, the Red Cross, Doctors Without Borders and physicians worldwide to respond to this crime against humanity,” he added.

Iranian authorities said earlier that airstrikes had damaged the Pasteur Institute, a key medical research center, warning that the attack poses risks to public health and international medical cooperation.

In a separate statement, Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei condemned the strike as “heartbreaking, cruel, despicable, and utterly outrageous.”

“The American-Israeli aggressors have attacked the Pasteur Institute of Iran — the oldest and most prestigious research and public health center in Iran and the entire Middle East, founded in 1920 through an agreement between the Pasteur Institute of Paris and the Iranian government,” Baghaei said on X.

Regional tensions have escalated since the US and Israel launched a joint offensive on Iran on Feb. 28, killing more than 1,340 people to date, including then-Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Iran has retaliated with drone and missile strikes targeting Israel as well as Jordan, Iraq and Gulf countries hosting US military assets.

*Writing by Rania Abushamala in Istanbul.