Minab school strike still lacks answers four months after suspected US hit

Jerusalem,UPDATED: Jul 1, 2026 09:54 IST

More than four months after a US missile struck an Iranian primary school in Minab in what was reported as the deadliest strike in the US-Israeli war against Iran, there is still no final account of what happened. Most of the victims were children, but the full toll remains unclear.

The Trump administration has not directly accepted blame, though a US official with knowledge of the situation told The Associated Press that the military had evidence almost immediately that the site had been hit. AP said it reconstructed the strike and its aftermath through interviews with US officials, human rights workers and Iranians in direct contact with rescuers and victims' families. Most of them spoke on condition of anonymity, citing fears of retribution.

When asked last week about the strike, President Donald Trump said he had seen nothing to make him believe the US was responsible. Iran's mission to the United Nations did not respond to AP's request for comment. On the morning of February 28, students arrived at the Shajareh Tayyebeh school in Minab, one of a number of schools in Iran set up for children from families linked to the Revolutionary Guard and other state institutions, according to Shiva Amelirad, international representative of an Iranian teachers' union who has been in contact with people in the city.

Amelirad said that while most schools in Iran function within the Islamic Republic's guidelines, the Shajareh Tayyebeh schools were more directly aimed at reinforcing the Guard's worldview. She said, "Regardless of the students' family backgrounds, children are civilians and any attack targeting a school is unequivocally condemnable." AP's assessment of satellite imagery said the school building was inside the same compound as a Guard base. It had earlier been a Guard building before being fenced off and converted more than a decade ago. Some students were children of Guard officers, while others were local children from an area populated by Baluch people, a majority-Sunni ethnic minority that is often repressed by the Iranian government, according to a local rights group.

As bombs began falling on Tehran, school staff started calling parents to collect their children early, two people said. A father living nearby rushed to pick up his son, according to a resident of Minab who relayed several families' accounts. He saw young relatives waiting for their parents and offered them a lift home, but they declined, the resident said. Ten minutes later, bombs hit at least five buildings in the compound, according to satellite imagery, and at least one collapsed next to the school.

The father ran back to the school, where men were searching through smoking rubble and pulling out bodies, according to video of the aftermath circulated by state media. He saw burned bodies he believed were his relatives. Rescuers found what was described as a tiny arm suspended in the rubble. A man from a nearby Sunni village who had come looking for his nephew found him dead in the debris. The Balochistan Human Rights Group said bodies reached the local hospital in pieces. By the end of the day, doctors there estimated they had at least 108 bodies, though they warned that number was likely an undercount, the Minab resident said. State media later reported a toll of 168.

Efforts to verify the details were hampered by government restrictions in Iran, AP said. Most foreign journalists could not enter the country, the internet had been shut down, the Strait of Hormuz had become a major battlefield, and all branches of Iran's military were heavily deployed in the area, the Minab resident said. Families of victims were also fearful of speaking publicly. With the death toll still unclear, attention turned to who was responsible. Iran blamed the US, Trump blamed Iran, and Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said the Pentagon was investigating.

According to the US official, the military knew after the blast that it had carried out strikes in the area, though it took time to verify Iranian claims that a school had been hit and to begin an inquiry. The official said one analyst appears to have identified the building as a school as early as seven years ago, but that information was not adequately shared across intelligence and military teams and agencies. As a result, the building was not known to target developers as a school, pointing to possible shortcomings in target analysis and review. The official said much of the investigative work had been completed and the military was reviewing the findings.

Even now, there is no full list of those killed. AP said the most extensive effort has come from Airwars, which has identified 157 of the dead, including 123 children and 34 adults. Among the adults were 26 school staff members and five parents, each of whom lost at least one child in the strike. More than four months on, the school strike in Minab remains without a final public account of the deaths, the toll or responsibility.

With PTI Inputs

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