Iran destroys decades of leukemia research in Israel.
It’s not just about nuclear weapons.
It’s about leukemia research.
The two go together when assessing Iran’s intentions and actions during last month’s 12-day war.
It’s not a pretty picture. We would simply label it pathetic if the matter were not so serious.
There is a side to the targeting of civilians by Iran that highlights the values that govern the ayatollahs. We know that Iran targets civilians in Israel via its terrorist proxies, Hamas and Hezbollah. We know that Iran targets civilians outside of Israel if they refuse to cooperate with Iran’s terrorist acts. We know that Iran targeted civilians in Israel during the 12-day war with Israel. Israel targeted military facilities; Iran targeted civilian locations.
All this is well known to people who follow the Middle East.
But it is less well known that Iran also targets Israeli medical research-ers. To focus on just one group, Iran had a devastating effect on leukemia researchers during the 12-day war.
Iran targeted the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel. It is worth amplifying on a report in last week’s IJN to highlight just how inhumane — anti-humanity — the ayatollahs in Iran are.
Iranian missiles destroyed entire laboratories at Weizmann. Nothing takes place in these laboratories beside scientific research. It may take some time to get a clear picture of the nuclear-weapon facilities in Iran that Israel destroyed, but it is already clear what Iran destroyed in Rehovot, Israel.
Some of Weizmann’s laboratories were completely destroyed. In the leukemia lab, about 25% of its collected stem cell samples were destroyed. These take years to accumulate. They cannot be replaced. Equipment can be replaced, but not the samples based on diseases and projects in and out of Weizmann.
Not that it is easy, quick or cheap to replace the equipment, but it can be done. Not the cell samples, however.
It belabors the obvious to note that advances in leukemia research benefit Iranians the same as any other people. But the obvious is worth noting because it highlights just how cruel Iran’s leadership is. Its logic (if you can call it that) is that it is worth denying life-saving research to Iranians in order to deny it to Israelis. If more Iranians suffer or die from leukemia, Iran’s hatred of Israel makes it all worthwhile.
Not that Weizmann is closing down. Even the leukemia research-ers, who are left with no lab for the time being, are welcomed to squeeze into other labs at Weizmann to carry on their research as best as possible.
In the longer view, Weizmann will rebuild, and the long process starts now.
If ever there were a stark — really, a black-and-white — contrast behind what drives Israel and what drives Iran’s leadership, here it is: the obstinate Israeli insistence on sustaining its medical research, as over against the Iranian attempt to kill it. Lab or no lab, the Israeli leukemia research continues.
And Iran? It’s still boasting it won the war, still expelling the UN’s nuclear watchdogs, still talking about enriching uranium, still handing out kudos to itself for losing its air defenses, hundreds of its missile launchers, at least most of its nuclear facilities — and its decades-long charade of “peaceful” nuclear pursuit.
© IJN 2025
