War Beyond Borders: An Impact Diary of the US-Israel War on Iran

Authors: Mariyam Yumna Azeez, LLM and Pradanya Nagru, MS

Design and Layout: Deanna Wilken, MA

August 28, 2026

Iranian missiles [Image credit: Moslem Daneshzadeh via Unsplash]

Introduction

Wars are rarely felt equally. The missiles, the sanctions, the closed straits and collapsed supply chains do not land with the same weight in Washington as they do in Kano, in Karachi, in Colombo, in Nairobi. The architecture of global conflict is built by a handful of powerful states, and its cost is distributed outward. It is absorbed, disproportionately and without consent, by the countries of the Global South.

On February 28, 2026, the United States launched military operations against Iran. Within days, the Strait of Hormuz was closed. What followed was not only a geopolitical crisis; it was a humanitarian one, playing out quietly, in the dark, in queues, in courtrooms, in classrooms, among people who had no part in starting any of it.

War Beyond Borders is HRRC's attempt to document those whispered stories Its contributors are researchers, legal analysts, journalists, and ordinary people who responded to an open call to share their stories. We believe that documentation is itself a human rights practice. Before accountability can be sought, the harm must be named. Before the harm can be named, it must be seen.

Conclusion & Recommendations

What these entries tell us, collectively, is a story that formal reporting on the US-Israel war on Iran has largely missed. The crisis has been sectoral, cumulative, and deeply unequal in how it distributes its weight. What can be seen is:

The burden falls downward. In every country documented, it is daily wage workers, drivers, small business owners, rural students, and the already-poor who have absorbed the sharpest impacts. War, like austerity, is a class issue.

Government responses have been inadequate. Across the diary, official measures have prioritised the appearance of management over the substance of relief, and in some cases, the cover of crisis has been used to advance policies that harm the most vulnerable.

Rights violations are interconnected. The right to education cannot be separated from the right to affordable transport. The right to health cannot be separated from functioning supply chains. When energy systems fail, the entire web of rights strains with them.

Distance is no longer a defence. This diary demonstrates that the geography of war has expanded well beyond the theatre of conflict. The idea that a war "over there" does not reach "over here" is no longer coherent, and international law, accountability frameworks, and humanitarian response must catch up with that reality.

HRRC calls on:

• States involved in the conflict to establish immediate humanitarian corridors, accept responsibility for civilian impact under international humanitarian law (IHL), and cease targeting protected civilian infrastructure.

• Global South governments to ensure relief reaches informal workers, rural populations, and the most economically precarious, and to resist the use of austerity as cover for abandoning them.

• International bodies and donors to treat the secondary humanitarian impacts of this conflict — in food, health, education, and economic stability — as primary concerns, and to fund monitoring of IHL compliance rather than defunding it.

• Civil society and the research community should keep documenting and building the evidentiary record that accountability will eventually require.
  

---

Glossary

• Abstraction: Something is abstract if it is intangible and conceptual, i.e.  it does not have real outcomes that can be measured. 

• Acute: Severe or serious 

• Anti-Encroachment: Methods to prevent the take-over of someone’s rights or their property 

• Austerity: Economic policies used to reduce government spending during financial difficulties. These measures often involve increasing taxes and implementing spending cuts, which can stagger economic growth.  

• Blockade: A military action that prevents people or goods from entering or leaving a place. 

• Burden: A difficult problem someone has to deal with.

• Diaspora: Members of an ethnic or religious group who live outside of their homeland.

• Discourse: Conversation

• Circulars: Official written notices sent to people to announce a new policy, share information, or deliver instructions

• Constituents: People who live and vote in a specific area and are represented in government by the person or people they elect. 

• Decimate: To destroy something.

• Enclave: A distinct area or territory, usually with its own rules, culture, and community, that exists within the borders of a state or country’s territory.

• Evidentiary: Relates to information or evidence used to prove (or disprove) something.

• Geopolitical: Relates to how geography, demographics, economics, and politics influence relationships between countries or regions. 

• Global South: A term for “developing” or historically lower-income countries.

• Humanitarian Corridors: Designated routes that allow civilians, food and medical aid to travel safely through conflict affected areas. Under international law, humanitarian corridors, if established,  must be respected by all parties of a conflict. 

• Irrevocable: Something is irrevocable if it cannot be changed or reversed.

• Inelastic Demand: Occurs when a change in the price of a product or service does not affect the demand for the product or the quantity of the product sold.

• Litre: A metric unit used to measure liquids. It is equivalent to approximately 34 fluid ounces.

• Modalities: The manner in which something is done.

• Practitioners: Individuals whose jobs require significant training or technical expertise.

• Post-traumatic: Psychological and emotional impacts that occur after witnessing or experiencing a traumatic or stressful event. 

• Precarious: Susceptible to a change in circumstances that arise out of uncertainty.

• QR Code: A square barcode pattern that is scanned to access information such as a website or a payment system. 

• Rickshaw: A form of transportation where a cart is pulled by a person or a bicycle.

• Reverberations: Effects or consequences of an event that are felt long after the event has occurred. 

• Sanctions: Penalties that are imposed on countries, groups, individuals in an attempt to change their behavior. 

• Sectoral: Relating to a sector, or a part, of society. 

• State-Adjacent Media: Media organizations that are connected to, or heavily influenced by, the government but are not owned by it. 

• Tighrope: A difficult situation in which two or more opposing choices must be balanced.

• Tuk-Tuk: A motorized vehicle that has three wheels, open sides, and a closed top. It is used as a taxi for short distances in many parts of the world. 

• Uptick: A rise or an increase in something.