Several hundred people gathered outside the Federal Building at Seventh and Mission Streets in San Francisco on Saturday afternoon to protest the massive U.S.-Israeli military operation against Iran that began around 1 a.m. EST.
“I’m here to call for no war in Iran, no foreign intervention in the country,” said Yasmine Mortazavi, an Iranian American organizer for the Party for Socialism and Liberation, one of several Bay Area groups that organized the event. She said the protest was personal.
“I have friends and family in Iran who I haven’t been able to talk to,” she said. “I assume my family is fleeing their city as we speak.”
Iranian state media reported Saturday evening that at least 201 people had been killed and more than 700 injured. The dead reportedly include more than 100 people killed in an Israeli air strike on an elementary girls’ school in the southern city of Minab.
Nina Vishwakarma, a San Francisco resident, said she was particularly shaken by reports of the bombing of the girls’ school. “We’re tired of U.S. intervention in the Middle East, and of Israel’s action in the Middle East,” she said. “We don’t want manufactured consent for this war. The narrative seems to always be about protecting the rights of girls, but today it was a girls’ school that was bombed.”
President Donald Trump announced Saturday afternoon that Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had been killed.
The strikes occurred shortly after renewed U.S.-Iran nuclear talks, during which Trump pressured Tehran to limit its nuclear program as he deployed additional warships to the region. Iran’s government has faced mounting civil unrest in recent weeks, with economic protests evolving into broader anti-government demonstrations. The Iranian government reportedly killed thousands in cracking down on the protests.
“I don’t support bombing countries for whatever Trump is looking for — oil or power in the Middle East,” said Fern, a student at San Francisco State who declined to provide her last name. “My best friend has family in Iran, and I’m terrified for her.”
The “No War on Iran” event featured speakers from the Palestinian Youth Movement, who led the crowd with chants condemning the joint U.S.-Israeli operation as a war crime. By 4 p.m., the crowd of approximately 300 demonstrators had scattered across Seventh Street, between Stevenson and Mission Streets, with many carrying signs calling for peace and respect for human rights.
Only 21 percent of Americans supported a war with Iran before today’s strikes, according to a poll from the University of Maryland taken earlier in February. Forty-nine percent opposed.
A few protesters carried signs suggesting the air strikes were intended to divert attention from the U.S. Department of Justice’s abortive and piecemeal release of the Epstein files — a developing controversy that Trump has sought to downplay.
“I’m here to support a message of peace and the gospel, and to speak up for those harmed in this war,” said The Rev. Richard E. Helmer of Grace Cathedral. “We stand in solidarity for a perpetual and just world.”
Speakers led the crowd with chants of, “From the belly of the beast, hands off the Middle East,” as drummers from Nodutdol, a Korean American advocacy organization, set a steady background rhythm.
“We view the recent attacks as part of an ongoing imperialist operation in the Middle East,” said Simon Ma, an organizer with Notudol. “We know the history of the U.S. as an aggressor. The U.S. dropped approximately 635,000 tons of bombs on Korea. We intimately know the violence,” he said, referring to the Korean War of 1950 to 1953.
Nick S., a Berkeley resident, was one of many U.S. Army veterans who carried anti-Trump protest signs. “I have a lot of friends serving and I don’t want to see them die. We’ve seen children bombed in Iran already,” he said. “When you go to war, you’re stained eternally.”
