Iran Asks ICC to Investigate Wedding Strike as Wounded Toll Climbs
The Iranian Red Crescent wrote to the International Criminal Court asking it to investigate Tuesday’s missile strike on a wedding in Kuhestak, saying the “civilian character of the location” could make it a “war crime”. Iran’s health ministry raised the wounded count from the American strikes to 142. President Trump overnight: “We hit them very hard last night… And we’re prepared to do another one. And anytime we want.” Funerals for the four named wedding victims were set for today.
Neither Washington nor Tehran recognises the ICC, so the letter is theatre — but theatre with an audience: it converts the wedding dead into a legal file that European governments, already queasy about the campaign, will be asked to acknowledge, and rights lawyers note Iran could accept the court’s jurisdiction for this single event. The sharper turn is domestic American: Reuters/Ipsos polling shows the war at 31% approval and the president at 33%, down seven points since February — numbers that explain both the overnight bravado and the insistence that the campaign “would not last long”. Iran’s spokesman answered with unusual directness: “Sirik is not a story. The civilians are real.” Watch today’s funerals — grief broadcast from Hormozgan is now Tehran’s most effective weapon.