Responsibility unclear for strike on girls’ school that Iran claims killed over 100 kids

NY Times analysis shows school located by IRGC base, which was also hit Saturday; US says it wouldn’t ‘deliberately’ target a school; IDF: ‘Unaware’ of any Israeli strikes in area

Days after Iranian state media reported that some 170 people, including over 100 children, were killed in a strike on a girls’ school on the first day of the US-Israeli assault on Iran, circumstances surrounding the deadly incident remain unclear.

The reported strike on Saturday took place on the Shajarah Tayyebeh elementary school in the town of Minab, and, according to unverified tallies released by Iranian government agencies, marked the deadliest incident so far in the war.

It was not immediately clear why the school was hit or which military was responsible for the strike. Iran has not allowed foreign journalists to access the site of the strike to independently verify the death toll or other details.

The US military has said it was “looking into” reports of “civilian harm resulting from ongoing military operations,” and Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Monday that American forces “would not deliberately target a school.”

An Israeli military spokesperson told The Times of Israel Tuesday that it was unaware of any Israeli strikes carried out in that area, and said the matter was under further review.

According to an analysis of the incident published by The New York Times, the school is located adjacent to a naval base belonging to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which was also hit that morning.

Sattelite images analyzed by The Times showed that in 2013, the school building was part of the IRGC naval compound, but that by 2016, the building had been walled off and separated from the military base.

According to the report, witness footage shared in Iranian media and verified by The Times showed columns of smoke billowing from the IRGC naval base on Saturday morning, around the same time that the Minab school was struck.

While some, including Israel’s Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon, have suggested that the strike may have been caused by an errant Iranian missile, the fact that the adjacent IRGC base was also hit in the same wave of strikes appears to make that a less-likely possibility.

The strike was condemned by the United Nations’ cultural and education agency, UNESCO, which said that “attacking an educational institution or hospital or any other civilian structure is a war crime under international humanitarian law.”

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Monday that “more than 160 young girls” were killed in the strike, which he blamed on “US-Israeli bombing.” He shared a photo of what appeared to be a mass grave site dug for those reportedly killed in the strike.

According to Iranian media reports, the funerals for the children killed in the incident were held Tuesday, with thousands seen in the streets of Minab.

The UN human rights office on Tuesday urged the “forces” behind the attack to investigate and share insights into the “horrific” incident.

“The High Commissioner (Volker Turk) calls for a prompt, impartial and thorough investigation into the circumstances of the attack. The onus is on the forces that carried out the attack to investigate it,” UN human rights office spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani told a Geneva press briefing, describing the incident as “horrific.”

The Iranian Red Crescent said Tuesday morning that 787 people have been killed nationwide since the US and Israel started striking Iran Saturday.

US and Israeli officials have lauded the success of the campaign. The US said air superiority was achieved over Iran, and the Israel Defense Forces said Monday it had destroyed some 600 Iranian targets so far.

Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei was killed in Israel’s opening strike on his compound in Tehran.

In response, Iran escalated its attacks on the region, continuing to target Israel with barrages of missiles. As of Tuesday, 11 people had been killed as a result of Iranian ballistic missile attacks on Israel since the full-scale conflict began.

Iran has also increasingly targeted its Arab neighbors across the Persian Gulf, killing several people in strikes on US bases, energy sites, civilian infrastructure and tanker ships.

Emanuel Fabian contributed to this report.