As the United States-Israeli war on Iran closes in on two weeks, one specific attack stands out as the bloodiest incident of the conflict so far.
On February 28, during the opening hours of the assault on Iran, a missile struck a girls’ school in southern Iran, killing more than 170 people – most of them schoolgirls.
Recommended Stories
list of 1 itemend of list
Since then, Israel and the US have tried to distance themselves from the attack, even as evidence mounts that the US was responsible for the killings. To critics, the bombing of the school has become emblematic of the horrors of the war that the US and Israel have unleashed, and that Iran has responded to by launching thousands of missiles and drones not just at Israel and US facilities across the region, but also at Gulf neighbours who have tried hard to not get sucked into the conflict.
So what do we know about the totemic incident that has shaped, for many, the early days of the war?
What happened in the Iran school strike?
The girls’ school, Shajareh Tayyebeh, was located in the city of Minab, near a base belonging to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
It was hit by a missile on February 28 at approximately 10:45am local time (07:15 GMT), a peak hour for classroom activity. The blast destroyed the two-storey building, causing the roof to collapse on 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, in Iran’s strategic Hormozgan province, which overlooks the Strait of Hormuz and hosts several IRGC naval facilities.
While Iran immediately attributed the strike to the US-Israel coalition, both nations denied responsibility.
Satellite images showed the school intact earlier that morning. US and Israeli air raids had begun across Minab and other parts of Hormozgan that morning.
Who does Iran blame for the attack?
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 the 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 spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei also slammed the “blatant crime” and urged action from the United Nations Security Council.
What does the evidence point to?
Footage from the scene suggests the school was likely hit by a Tomahawk missile.
Preliminary investigations suggest the school may have been hit by a US missile because of a targeting error, though the exact circumstances remain under investigation.
Analysts say the strike may have been caused by outdated targeting information, as the school is on the same block as buildings used by the IRGC’s navy and the site of the school was originally part of the base.
For years the school had been separated and had its own walls and entrances.
“It seems that the United States Central Command did not keep its target list up to date,” Mark Cancian, a retired Marine Corps colonel and senior adviser with the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank, told Al Jazeera.
“Apparently, the building shifted some years ago from military use to the school and the Central Command targeting cell did not pick up that change,” he added.
The Shahid Absalan clinic, under the supervision of the IRGC navy’s medical command, is about 238 metres (780 feet) from the site, while the Seyed al-Shohada IRGC cultural complex is 286 metres (938 feet) away.
What has the US said 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, nor now, suggesting any Iranian role in the attack.
“Based on what I’ve seen, that was done by Iran,” Trump said on Saturday. “We think it was done by Iran because they are very inaccurate, as you know, with their munitions. They have no accuracy whatsoever. It was done by Iran.”
Pete Hegseth, the US defence secretary, was standing behind Trump at the time. He declined to endorse Trump’s assessment and instead reiterated that the Pentagon was investigating the incident.
However, The New York Times reported on Wednesday that the school was hit by a US Tomahawk missile because of a targeting error. The newspaper, citing US officials, said the investigation was ongoing, but preliminary findings indicated the US was responsible.
Asked by reporters about the report, Trump said: “I don’t know about it.”
Trump also 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 would not intentionally target a school.
“Members of [Trump’s] administration have been saying an investigation is under way and that they can’t comment on an open investigation,” Al Jazeera’s Mike Hanna reported from Washington, DC.
What has Israel said?
Israel has denied any involvement.
“We have checked multiple times and have found no connection between the [Israeli army] and whatever happened in that school,” Israeli military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani said.
What are Democrats asking for in the US?
Nearly all US Senate Democrats have signed a letter to Hegseth calling for a “swift investigation
“The results of this school attack are horrific. The majority of those killed in the strikes were girls between the ages of 7 and 12 years old. Neither the United States nor the Israeli government has yet taken responsibility for this attack,” the letter, signed by 46 senators, said.
The letter asked for answers to a series of questions, including whether US forces conducted the strikes, what steps the military has taken to prevent and mitigate civilian harm, and what role artificial intelligence tools have played in operations.
If the US role is confirmed, “it would be embarrassing for the military since they have otherwise conducted a pretty sound operation. It will feed some of the antiwar sentiment in Congress and in the population”, Cancian said.
Has this happened before?
For all of the US’s claims of targeting only military facilities and individuals, its armed forces have a long history of killings – followed at times, with cover ups – of civilians.
During the 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, the US struck an annex of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade after misidentifying the building as a Yugoslav military facility.
The strike killed three Chinese journalists and injured more than 20 people.
Washington later said the bombing occurred because intelligence analysts relied on outdated maps, which mistakenly identified the embassy compound as a military target.
The incident triggered 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 struck the Amiriyah bunker in Baghdad, believing it was a command-and-control facility,” Cancian explained.
“It held only civilians and 403 were killed,” he added.
Operation Desert Storm was the US-led air and ground campaign of the Gulf War, launched after Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990. The coalition began a massive aerial bombardment of Iraq in January 1991 aimed at crippling Iraq’s military infrastructure, leadership networks and command centres before launching a ground offensive.
In this case, two precision-guided bombs penetrated the bunker, killing more than 400 people, many of them women and children. The attack became one of the deadliest civilian casualty incidents 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 it was a place where civilians went to take shelter – we thought of it as a military bunker in which command and control facilities resided,” said McPeak to journalist Sofia Barbarani. McPeak was chief of staff of the US Air Force during the Gulf War.
In the Belgrade case, the CIA dismissed one mid-level intelligence officer responsible for identifying the target. Six senior managers were also reprimanded.
No criminal charges were filed. However, the US later paid $28m to the Chinese government for damage to the embassy and $4.5m to the families of the victims.
In the Amiriyah case, the US military did not classify the strike as an error, and no personnel were fired or disciplined. US officials maintained that the bunker was a legitimate military target that was also being used to shelter civilians.
Decades earlier, in what came to be known as the My Lai massacre in 1968, US soldiers killed between 347 and 504 civilians, and gang-raped women, in a village during the Vietnam War. The US military initially covered up the war crime, but an expose by journalists Seymour Hersh and Ronald Ridenhour brought the horrors of My Lai to the attention of the world, fuelling antiwar sentiment in the US and prompting calls for accountability.
Though 26 soldiers were charged, only one – Lieutenant William Calley Jr, the leader of the platoon involved – was convicted. He was given a life sentence, but that was commuted: He eventually served only three-and-a-half years of house arrest.
Though the investigation into the Minab school bombing is still on, experts say that even an official acknowledgement that the US was responsible might only lead to limited consequences.
“If the error can be traced to a single person, then there is the possibility of disciplinary action,” Cancian said.
“However, the secretary [Hegseth] has repeatedly said to service members, ‘I have your back,’ so the possibility of action is lower,” he added.