Statement and Resource list: End the US-Israeli War on Iran

Room Magazine unequivocally condemns the unjust U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, and Canada’s complicity and cowardice. As a feminist organization, Room Magazine is especially concerned with the February 28, 2026 attack, wherein the U.S., using Tomahawk missiles, bombed Shajareh Tayyebeh Elementary School—a girls’ school in Minab, Iran, teaching students no older than twelve years of age. Per Al Jazeera, this attack killed at least 165 people: 165 lives and loved ones, not mere numbers, not mere proxy casualties, many of them 7-12-year-old pupils and their teachers. In addition to the 165+ civilians and children tragically killed, the U.S.-Israeli bombing injured many more, as it was a double-tap missile drop, meant to inflict the most pain and suffering, the greatest loss of life, by first destroying their target, which was a school for children 12 years and younger, and then striking again to murder and maim escapees and first responders. That American and Israeli representatives immediately tried to shift blame onto Iran only compounds this crime against humanity, revealing a lack of any moral compass and fitness for their positions in power.

Our government and its supposed opposition party sit in smug, implicit agreement that this war, while not ideal, is not unjust, matching their consistent approach to Islamophobic attacks on Muslim populations. Meanwhile, many mainstream Canadian media outlets are focused on how the war will affect oil prices, rather than its catastrophic impacts on the people of Iran. These priorities and concessions are beyond shameful, and Room disavows them absolutely.

Wherever the U.S. drags its allies, it sows discord, foments violence, and engages in the extraction of people, places, time, and resources at a level of egregiousness that we likely will never know. No state should have the power to aim white phosphorus, dirty bombs, and missiles named after Indigenous nations and peoples—while the U.S. continues to dispossess those same peoples of land, life, and sovereignty—at hospitals, schoolchildren, or cultural and agricultural sites. Current and future generations, as well as past generations who fought for international human rights and dignity, must be protected and honoured.

In times of military violence, girls, women, and gender-diverse people always suffer in unique ways, and the claims coming from the U.S. and Israel that their killings are “liberating” anyone is a mockery of their victims and a perversion of intersectional feminism. We have seen in Venezuela, in the Congo, in Palestine and beyond, that any of the U.S.’ claims to social justice or promoting democracy via military campaigns are a pathetic smokescreen.

Room Magazine does not cosign the bombing of civilian, elementary-aged girls seeking out education as moral, or necessary, or “complicated.” We mourn these children, what their lives were and should have been, as we mourn other victims of Western imperialism around the world.

As feminists and as human beings, Room Magazine stands with the anticolonial resistance in Iran and we reject the appropriation of feminist language to justify or obscure violence. True feminism cannot be used as a cloak for imperial agendas; the language of rights, equality, and liberation is not a cover for oppression.

We call, too, for the protection of children, educators, and the communities of those affected, and for a future grounded in sovereignty and justice.

Take action:

Petition to Withdraw Canadian troops from region assisting US/Israeli aggression on Iran, via Action Network

Send our government the Open Letter from Canadian Arts and Cultural Producers, via Media Co-op

Resources:

Stop Arming Israel via World Beyond War, which features a map of some of the weapons manufacturing companies across Canada involved in arming the Israeli military.

Arms Embargo Now