UN finds reasonable grounds US committed war crimes in Iran school strikes

A United Nations fact-finding mission has concluded there are reasonable grounds to believe the United States launched military strikes on a school and sports facility in Iran in February that killed at least 178 civilians, and that these attacks constitute war crimes under international law.

On February 28, a US Tomahawk missile struck the Shajareh Tayyebeh primary school in Minab, a city in Hormozgan province in southern Iran. The impact collapsed the roof. According to the UN investigators, 156 civilians died in that single strike, including 120 children. The mission found the school was unmistakably a civilian structure—clearly identifiable as such—and discovered no evidence it had been used for military purposes. On the same day, a second strike hit a sports complex and surrounding residential area in the nearby city of Lamerd, scattering tungsten pellets across the site. That attack killed and wounded 22 civilians and damaged nearby homes and a school.

The UN fact-finding team, an independent international mission examining both US conduct during the Iran war that began in February and the Iranian government's response to nationwide protests, determined that the school strike amounted to an indiscriminate attack. According to their investigation, the US had acted on intelligence suggesting a senior Iranian military commander was present at the location but failed to adequately verify this information before firing. The investigators found that the failure to update targeting data and confirm the building's actual use went beyond simple negligence. In their formal language, the US "directed the strikes at the building of the school while being aware of a substantial risk of striking a civilian object and acting recklessly as regards the possibility that this would happen." The Lamerd strike, the mission concluded, followed the same pattern of indiscriminate targeting.

The Pentagon has conducted its own secretive investigation into the incident, understood to have concluded several months ago, but has not released findings. In June, President Donald Trump stated that "nobody" had intentionally attacked a girls' school in Iran in February, citing that investigation. US Central Command denied in March that its forces had launched any strikes into Lamerd on that date—a position that directly contradicts the UN's findings.

There have been reports that senior US commanders had been warned that the targeting intelligence used during the war, including for the Minab strike, was dangerously out of date. The UN mission will submit its findings to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. US officials have previously maintained that military operations are conducted in accordance with the law of armed conflict.

The investigation also examined Iran's own conduct. The UN mission found that Iranian authorities had committed crimes against humanity during their crackdown on anti-government protests that began in late December. The government's response involved unlawful killings, torture, arbitrary detention, enforced disappearances, and severe restrictions on freedom of expression. While investigators could not independently verify the death toll, they concluded the actual number of dead and injured was likely far higher than official figures, which claim 3,038 people were killed and 25,000 injured. Iran has blamed "terrorists and rioters" backed by exiled opponents and the US and Israel for the unrest. Rights groups say bystanders were among those killed in what amounts to the largest crackdown since Shia Muslim clerics took power in 1979.