UN investigates attack on girls’ school in Iran

Initial investigations by American and independent groups point to US responsibility.

A UN investigative group has begun an investigation into an airstrike that hit the Shajareh Tayyebeh primary school, in the city of Minab, in the south of the country, on the first day of the war between the United States and Israel against Iran.

The attack, which killed at least 175 people, most of them children, is also being investigated by US military investigators, with preliminary conclusions pointing to the US military’s responsibility for the attack, Reuters reported.

The New York Times reported that U.S. Central Command officials created target coordinates for the attack using outdated data provided by the Defense Intelligence Agency, citing people familiar with the investigation.

The attack on the school occurred simultaneously with missiles hitting nearby Iranian naval targets.

Iran also blamed the US for the attack, describing it as an “unforgivable” war crime.

“We are at an early stage of this investigation,” Max du Plessis, a member of the United Nations Fact-Finding Mission on Iran, said at a press conference in Geneva on Tuesday.

“For us, it is clear that whatever happens in relation to an event like this, considering the innocent lives that were lost, there is a crucial need for an investigation to be carried out and an independent conclusion to be reached.”

Middle East Eye was the first to report that the students were killed by twin attacks, with the second missile hitting survivors who were taking shelter, according to witnesses interviewed at the scene.

“When the first bomb hit the school, one of the teachers and the principal took a group of students to the prayer room to protect them,” said one of the Red Cross paramedics, citing conversations he had at the time with survivors.

“The principal called the parents and told them to come and get their children. But the second bomb also hit that area. Only a small number of those who had taken shelter survived.”

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baqaei said there was a “double American Tomahawk missile firing” on February 28 that “killed 168 little Iranian angels.”

Hassan Fartousi, secretary-general of Iran’s National Commission for UNESCO, also told Al Jazeera that he believed the school had been hit by two different missiles.

The attack ranks among the worst civilian casualties in decades of US military strikes in the Middle East.

Some human rights organizations, such as Amnesty International, have already claimed that the US was responsible. The Trump administration has repeatedly denied attacking civilians.

In another investigation, the Iran Fact-Finding Mission concluded on Monday that the Israeli attack on Tehran’s Evin prison during last June’s war, which killed more than 80 people, constitutes a war crime.

Originally published by Middle East Eye on 03/17/2026