Footage of ruined decorations, abandoned shoes and debris strewn on the ground circulated widely in Iran on Wednesday following a wedding celebration that was turned “into a funeral” by a deadly US strike.
The strike hit on Tuesday night in the coastal town of Kuhestak along Strait of Hormuz in southern Iran, according to the Iranian Red Crescent, after the United States announced attacks against targets belonging to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.
Iranian authorities said the strike killed at least four people, including a child, and wounded 68 others at the wedding.
Shortly afterwards, footage began circulating online showing debris and rubble at the wedding site, with people heard screaming as rescuers rushed to provide assistance.
Another video showed colourful decorations on the ground and shoes apparently left behind in the chaos, with the man holding the camera picking up a white sandal with glittering straps and remarking sarcastically: “Another pair of military boots in this military base.”
“You wicked people have attacked people’s homes and turned their wedding ceremony into a funeral,” said the man in the video carried by Fars news agency.
In other footage, a state television reporter holds up a charred piece of metal he said was a fragment from “the American missile… that turned a wedding celebration into a tragedy”.
The United States did not specify what it targeted in Kuhestak.
In a post on X, US Central Command said it was carrying out strikes against targets of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards following their “recent attempted attacks… against commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz and against American service members deployed to the region”.
A Centcom spokesperson, when asked about reports of civilian casualties, insisted “the US military never targets civilians”.
Iran has been at war since February 28, when the United States and Israel launched a surprise bombing campaign that killed its supreme leader.
An April ceasefire brought an end to the initial phase of intense bombardment, but sporadic exchanges of fire have continued, particularly in and around the Strait of Hormuz, which Tehran has virtually blocked since the start of the war.
‘Still shaking’
Authorities in the southern province of Hormozgan said several “telecommunications and internet towers and sites were also seriously damaged” in the latest strikes, causing disruptions to communication networks in the area.
In Kuhestak, state television showed footage of a collapsed communications tower, with twisted metal debris spread across a street.
Some Iranian media outlets estimated the tower to be around 140 metres (460 feet) from the wedding site.
On Wednesday morning, the Red Crescent shared a video apparently filmed from above after daybreak, showing a hole in the roof of a house at the wedding site, with wreckage and rubble strewn across nearby alleyways.
In a separate video carried by state media, the father of the bride, Ali Mallahi, called it “a very saddening incident”.
“I really don’t know what to say. Thank God the casualties were not higher.”
Other footage carried by Iranian media showed wounded children lying in hospital beds.
One man, apparently suffering from a head injury and lying in a hospital bed, said he had been on his way to the wedding when he heard fighter jets overhead.
“As we arrived there, an explosion happened. It was really powerful, so powerful that even before I arrived there, pieces and debris from the building smashed into my head and face and I passed out,” the unnamed man said in a video carried by local media.
“Lots of children and women were horribly injured. All the people were ordinary people,” he added.
On Instagram, a woman with her hands covered in henna and wearing purple posted a video following the strike, saying: “My hands and feet are still shaking.”
“May god have mercy,” she said, adding in another post that the bride, the groom and all their immediate family were “safe”.
