August 26, 2026

From Ukraine to Iran, Attacks on Civilian Sites Put Us All at Risk

By: Nicholas Lokker

This article was originally published in Inkstick.

The last several years have seen military conflict fan out around the world — from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to the US-Israeli war on Iran. Throughout these hostilities, there has been a trend of increasingly brazen violations of the foundational norms of armed conflict. One particularly concerning area is the rise in attacks on civilian infrastructure, many of which do not fulfil the criteria for legitimate military targets. If this trend of attacks on civilian infrastructure continues, as exemplified by the recent Ukrainian strikes on Russia’s Wildberries e-commerce warehouses, the power of the norm against them will only erode further, paving the way for more and more escalatory actions.

If more and more countries demonstrate a willingness to break these norms, their power will continue to diminish, and Russia may abandon any semblance of restraint it still retains.

This year alone, US-Israeli strikes have hit a slate of civilian sites in Iran, while Israeli bombings in Lebanon have targeted roads, bridges, and hospitals that Israel’s government dubiously insists are military sites. Meanwhile, both sides in the Sudan war have targeted schools, medical facilities, dams, and displacement camps. The main consequence of these attacks is, of course, more death and misery for innocent civilians. As the death tolls of these conflicts continue to swell, the United Nations Stéphane Dujarric recently called for an end to “attacks against civilians and civilian infrastructure,” describing them as “a clear violation of international humanitarian law, wherever they occur.”

Read the full article in Inkstick.

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