US likely committing war crimes with ‘reckless’ strike on Iran school, damning UN report finds

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The United States is believed to have committed war crimes during two military strikes in Iran this year, including a devastating attack on a primary school which killed more than 120 children, a damning UN report says.

The deadly incident took place in February this year, soon after the US-Israeli war on Iran started, and alongside another strike on a sports centre resulted in the deaths of at least 178 civilians.

The report by humans rights experts also documented the killings of thousands of anti-regime protestors across Iran, in which at least 221 children were reportedly killed, some as young as two years-old. The crackdown by Tehran amounted to crimes against humanity, the report said.

The United Nations’ top rights body says it has established “reasonable grounds” to back the findings, published by the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Iran. The report will be formally submitted to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.

In the larger of the two US strikes, Tomahawk missiles hit the “clearly identifiable” Shajareh Tayyebeh Primary School in Minab during the onset of the US-Israeli conflict against Iran.

Iranian officials stated that more than 150 people were killed in the strike, including around 120 schoolchildren, while state media placed the total death toll at 168. No final public accounting of the incident has been released.

Strikes in the area began around 10am IRST (6am GMT). Iranian authorities reported initial strikes in the area at roughly 10:45am local time with social media reports emerging at around 11:30am.

Iran runs on a six-day working week from Saturday to Thursday, with Friday being the only official day of rest. This means the school would have been occupied when it was hit.

The school reportedly had no association with the IRGC for the last nine years and had been marked by colourful walls and paintings.

Footage circulating on social media showed the building had been destroyed with remnants of school books seen among the rubble.

“Following the United States and Israeli attacks on 28 February, the mission found reasonable grounds to believe the United States committed the war crime of launching indiscriminate attacks resulting in the loss of life or injury to civilians or damage to civilian objects,” the fact-finding team said in a statement.

“Rather, 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.”

In June US President Donald Trump said that “nobody” purposefully attacked a girls’ school in Iran in February, citing an investigation into the ⁠incident. Reuters first reported that an initial internal US military investigation showed US forces were likely responsible for the fatal strike in Minab.

According to the report, American forces relied on intelligence suggesting a senior Iranian military commander was present at the school. However, military planners failed to adequately re-verify the information or confirm the location remained a valid military objective prior to launching the strike.

Investigators noted that this failure extended beyond mere negligence, writing: “Rather, 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 Trump administration has yet to directly accept responsibility or publish the findings of a Pentagon inquiry into the bombing.

The UN-backed panel also cited war crime allegations regarding a second February 28 bombardment on Iran, where precision strike missiles dispersed tungsten pellets over a “clearly identifiable sports complex and residential area” in Lamerd.

The attack damaged nearby residential structures and a school, killing or injuring 22 civilian men and women. It concluded that the strike was indiscriminate and therefore constituted a war crime.

US Central Command said in a statement in March that US forces ‌did not launch any strikes into the city of Lamerd on that day.

Killings by Tehran’s state security forces which occurred on a “staggering scale” in Iran were also documented in the report, concluding that Iranian authorities committed crimes against humanity during a crackdown on nationwide anti-government protests that erupted in late December.

The panel detailed widespread abuses by Iranian authorities, including unlawful killings, torture, arbitrary detention, enforced disappearances, and severe restrictions on freedom of expression.

UN experts noted they could not independently verify the complete death toll, but believed actual casualties far exceeded official government figures of 3,038 dead and 25,000 injured.

Tehran attributed the unrest to “terrorists and rioters” backed by foreign adversaries, including Israel and the US.

However, investigators emphasised that Iranian civilians were trapped between “gross human rights violations and crimes against humanity committed by their own government and the nation’s deadly conflict with the United States and Israel”.

The Human Rights Council established the fact-finding mission in 2022, chaired by Bangladeshi jurist Sara Hossain, and it comprises independent experts. Neither the US nor the Iranian permanent missions in Geneva immediately responded to requests for comment.

US officials have previously maintained that military operations comply with the law of armed conflict, while Tehran routinely denies allegations of systematic human rights violations.

The Fact-Finding Mission urged Iran and the US to immediately cease all violations and crimes, provide full reparations to victims, and guarantee non-repetition.

The Mission further urged an immediate end to hostilities, renewed diplomatic action by all Member States for permanent peace, and third-state accountability through universal jurisdiction.