Who bombed an Iranian girls’ school that killed more than 170 people? What do we know? US-Israel war over Iran news

As the United States-Israeli war on Iran draws to a close in two weeks, one particular attack has become the bloodiest event of the conflict so far.

On February 28, early in the attack on Iran, a missile struck a girls’ school in southern Iran, killing more than 170 people – most of them schoolgirls.

Since then, Israel and the US have tried to distance themselves from the attack, as evidence mounts of US responsibility for the killings. For critics, the bombing of the school is a symbol of the horrors of the war waged by the US and Israel, and Iran has responded by launching thousands of missiles and drones at Israel and US facilities across the region, but also at Gulf neighbors who have tried to stay out of the conflict.

So what do we know about the totemic event that shaped, for many, the early days of war?

What happened in the Iran school strike?

The girls’ school, Shajareh Tayyebe, is located near an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) base in Minab city.

It was hit by a missile on February 28 at around 10:45 am local time (07:15 GMT), the class’s peak hour of activity. The explosion destroyed the two-storey building and the roof collapsed on the students and teachers inside.

At least 170 people, most of them children, were killed. Dozens of others were injured.

The school is located in Minab, Iran’s strategic Hormozgan province, which overlooks the Strait of Hormuz and houses several IRGC naval facilities.

Although Iran immediately blamed the strike on the US-Israeli coalition, both nations denied responsibility.

Satellite images showed the school intact that morning. American and Israeli airstrikes began that morning in Minab and other parts of Hormozgan.

Who is responsible for the attack in Iran?

Iran blamed both the US and Israel for the strike.

On February 28, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi shared a photo of the attack, which he said destroyed a girls’ school and killed “innocent children”.

“These crimes against the Iranian people will not go unanswered,” Araghchi wrote in a post on X.

Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Esmail Baghai criticized the “blatant crime” and called for action by the United Nations Security Council.

What does the evidence suggest?

Footage from the scene indicates the school was hit by a Tomahawk missile.

Preliminary investigations indicate that the school may have been hit by a US missile due to an error in targeting, although the exact circumstances are under investigation.

Analysts say the strike may have been triggered by outdated targeting information as the school is in the same block as buildings used by the IRGC’s navy and the school site was originally part of a base.

For years the school was segregated and had its own walls and entrances.

“It appears that the United States Central Command has not kept its target list up to date,” Mark Cancione, a retired Marine Corps colonel and senior adviser at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank, told Al Jazeera.

“Apparently, the building shifted from military use to a school a few years ago and the Central Command Targeting Cell did not pick up on that change,” he said.

The Shahid Absalan Clinic, overseen by the IRGC Naval Medical Command, is about 238 meters (780 ft) from the site, while the Seyed al-Shohada IRGC Cultural Complex is 286 meters (938 ft) away.

What did America say about the strike?

US President Donald Trump initially suggested that Iran itself may have been responsible for the strike – even though there was no evidence, then or now, indicating any Iranian role in the attack.

“Based on what I’ve seen, Iran did it,” Trump said Saturday. “We think it was done by Iran because they are, you know, very inaccurate with their munitions. They have no accuracy. It was done by Iran.”

At this time, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth stood behind Trump. He declined to endorse Trump’s assessment and reiterated that the Pentagon is investigating the incident.

However, the school was hit by a US Tomahawk missile due to an error in targeting, the New York Times reported on Wednesday. Citing US officials, the paper said an investigation was ongoing, but preliminary findings suggested the US was responsible.

Asked by reporters about the report, Trump said, “I don’t know about that.”

Trump told reporters on Monday that Iran “also has some tomahawks” — a claim widely dismissed by military experts.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said last week that the US did not intentionally target the school.

“Members of the (Trump) administration are saying the investigation is ongoing and they cannot comment on an open investigation,” Al Jazeera’s Mike Hanna reported from Washington, DC.

What did Israel say?

Israel has denied any involvement.

“We checked several times and found no connection between (the Israeli army) and what happened at that school,” Israeli military spokesman Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani said.

What are the Democrats asking for in the US?

Almost all US Senate Democrats have signed a letter to Hegseth, “calling for an urgent investigation.”

“The results of this school attack are horrific. Most of those killed in the strike were girls between the ages of 7 and 12. Neither the United States nor the Israeli government has yet claimed responsibility for the attack,” the letter, signed by 46 senators, said.

The letter sought answers to a series of questions, including whether US forces had conducted strikes, what steps the military had taken to prevent and mitigate civilian harm, and what role artificial intelligence tools played in the operation.

If the US role is confirmed, “it will embarrass the military because they ran a good operation. It will feed some anti-war sentiment in Congress and the population”, Cancian said.

Has this happened before?

For all the US’s claims to target only military facilities and individuals, its armed forces have a long history of killing — sometimes with cover-ups — civilians.

During the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999, the US struck the Chinese embassy annex in Belgrade after misidentifying the building as a Yugoslav military facility.

Three Chinese journalists were killed and more than 20 others injured in the strike.

Washington later said the bombing occurred because intelligence analysts relied on old maps, which mistakenly identified the embassy compound as a military target.

The incident sparked a major diplomatic crisis with China, leading to large protests outside US diplomatic missions in Beijing and other cities.

“In 1991, during Desert Storm, the US also hit the Amiriya bunker in Baghdad, believing it to be a command-and-control facility,” Cancion explained.

“It had only civilians and 403 were killed,” he said.

Operation Desert Storm was a US-led air and ground operation of the Gulf War, launched after Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990. The coalition launched a massive aerial bombardment of Iraq in January 1991 with the intention of criminalizing Iraq’s military infrastructure and leadership center before launching.

In the event, two precision-guided bombs penetrated the bunker and killed more than 400 people, most of them women and children. The attack was one of the deadliest civilian casualties of the war and drew widespread international condemnation.

At the time, the US relied primarily on intelligence-gathering satellites, four-star General Merrill McPeak told Al Jazeera in 2021.

“It never occurred to us that this was a place where civilians went to seek refuge – we thought of it as a military bunker, in which command and control facilities resided,” McPeak told journalist Sophia Barbarani. McPeak was the head of the US Air Force during the Gulf War.

In the Belgrade case, the CIA fired a mid-level intelligence officer responsible for target identification. Six senior managers have also been reprimanded.

No criminal charges have been filed. However, the US later paid $28m to the Chinese government for damage to the embassy and $4.5m to the victims’ families.

In the Amiriya case, the US military did not classify the strike as a mistake and no personnel were fired or disciplined. US officials maintained that the bunker was a legitimate military target and was also being used to shelter civilians.

Decades earlier, in what became known as the My Lai massacre in 1968, US soldiers killed 347 to 504 civilians and gang-raped women in a village during the Vietnam War. The US military initially covered up the war crime, but exposés by journalists Seymour Hersh and Ronald Ridenhour brought the horrors of My Lai to the world’s attention, fueled anti-war sentiment in the US and prompted calls for accountability.

Although 26 soldiers were charged, only one – Lt. William Calley Jr., the platoon leader involved – was convicted. He was given a life sentence, but it was commuted: he eventually served only three and a half years of house arrest.

Although investigations into the Minab school bombing are still ongoing, experts say an official acknowledgment of US responsibility could lead to only limited consequences.

“If the fault can be traced to an individual, then disciplinary action is likely,” Cancian said.

“However, the secretary (Hegseth) has repeatedly told service members ‘I have your back,’ so the likelihood of action is slim,” he said.