This weekend, the sun shone and a warm breeze brought a sense of hope after a long winter. Birds chirped and neighbors emerged from hibernation, exchanging greetings after months indoors. Children took to the streets on their bikes, and those of us with kids relished the laughter that comes when the weather finally turns.

For families in Iran, it’s a very different story. Thousands of miles away in that war-torn country, children are afraid to play outside.

As the U.S. and Israel wage war against an extreme theocratic regime in Iran that wishes to eradicate both of our countries, the Iranian people are caught in the middle.

Reports out of Iran estimate as many as 175 people were killed in attacks Feb. 28, primarily schoolgirls between the ages of 7 and 12, The New York Times reported.

The school, Shajarah Tayyebeh, is near Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps facilities, and was in session that Saturday, a regular school day in Iran, according to the report.

Videos shared online of the aftermath show fathers digging through rubble and mothers sifting through small backpacks and flipping through pages of notebooks decorated with colorful hand-drawn flowers.

Iran’s now-deceased Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei led a brutal regime that oppressed women and ruled under harsh interpretations of Islamic law. Dissent was often met with brutal repression. None of that, however, makes the deaths of schoolchildren any easier to bear for the families left behind.

“Like I said, some people will die,” President Donald Trump said last week. “When you go to war, some people will die.”

That is the brutal reality of war. Some of the people dying so far in this war are little girls in school.

It’s unclear precisely who is responsible for this attack, and there are conflicting reports.

“The United States would not deliberately target a school,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said earlier this month, also noting that an investigation is underway. Iran’s UN envoy said over 1,300 Iranian civilians have been killed so far in the war, according to Reuters.

“Every war is a war against children,” Eglantyne Jebb, founder of Save the Children, said a century ago as the world emerged from World War I. What he meant was that while children do not start or lead wars, they disproportionately suffer the consequences.

This is a conflict being fought in a distant country. At home, those of us without relatives doing the fighting mainly feel the effects of the war at the pump — oil prices have topped $100 per barrel as a disruption affecting roughly 20% of global oil supply ripples through energy markets — but otherwise our days here carry on much as normal.

But we have to remember that our country is at war. It’s real and its effects have not yet been fully felt. In addition to the Iranian dead, seven American service members have been killed since the war began, ranging in age from their early 20s to early 50s. Many are parents whose children will grow up without a mother or father. All are mourned by devastated family and friends.

War is often debated in terms of strategy, deterrence and geopolitics. But the early days of this conflict are already offering a reminder of something far more basic: Behind every military objective are ordinary people who will live with the brutal consequences long after the bombs stop falling.

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