Mourners attend funeral for victims of school strike in Minab, Iran. Photo: Reuters
They had arrived for morning classes.
When the strike hit the Shajareh Tayyebeh girls’ elementary school in Minab, a city in southern Iran, on February 28, the girls were at their desks. By the time rescuers reached the site, backpacks lay buried under rubble, torn textbooks were scattered across the ground, and what had been classrooms was reduced to debris – images that illustrate a grim reality of modern warfare where the first victims of war are often children.
At least 165 students and staff were killed. Ninety-six others were injured. Most of those who died were girls aged between seven and 12.
Many of those killed in Minab were girls aged between seven and 12, attending morning classes when the strike hit the school during the opening wave of attacks. For their families, the conflict did not arrive in the form of geopolitical strategy or military objectives, but through the loss of children who had simply gone to school.
The strike on the school appears to be the worst mass casualty event of the US-Israeli-led bombing campaign on Iran so far.
The attack in Minab took place during the opening hours of a wave of US-Israeli strikes on Iran that began on February 28. Video footage and photographs from the scene showed the school building partially collapsed and still smoking, with hundreds of residents gathered outside as rescuers and local people pulled through the debris for survivors.
An investigation by Al Jazeera, based on video analysis, confirmed two distinct missile impacts. One was on barracks belonging to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), which is located adjacent to the school, and one on the school itself.
Hossein Kermanpour, spokesperson for Iran’s health ministry, called it “the most bitter news” of the conflict. “God knows how many more children’s bodies they will pull from under the rubble,” he wrote in a post on X.
Videos analysed from the strike confirmed two distinct missile impacts—one striking the adjacent military facility and another hitting the school itself.
According to Al Jazeera, the incident reflects a pattern documented in several US and Israeli military operations, from Baghdad to Gaza, where schools, hospitals and shelters have been struck during military campaigns, typically followed by immediate denials or conflicting accounts of responsibility.
In the case of Minab, the investigation suggested the strike may have been intended to cause significant civilian casualties and send a strong signal amid the ongoing US-Israeli attacks on Iran.
The Israeli military said it was not aware of any Israeli or US attacks in the area.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the incident would be investigated if American forces were involved. “The Department of War would be investigating that if that was our strike,” Rubio told reporters on Monday, March 2.
“The United States would not deliberately target a school,” he added.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi accused the United States and Israel of responsibility for the strike.
Posting an image of freshly dug graves on X, Araghchi wrote that the victims were “more than 160 innocent girls” killed in an American-Israeli bombing of an elementary school.
“From Gaza to Minab, innocent people were killed in cold blood,” he added.
UNESCO said that the airstrike on the school constituted a violation of international law and expressed alarm over the widening impact of the conflict on educational institutions across the region.
The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor condemned the attack, warning that strikes on schools cause not just immediate death and injury but lasting harm such as disrupting education, destroying children’s sense of safety and inflicting psychological trauma that outlasts the rubble.
It urged all parties to protect civilians, particularly children, and to ensure that schools and other civilian infrastructure are not targeted.
The organisation said attacks on educational facilities not only cause immediate deaths and injuries but also disrupt education, undermine children’s sense of security and create long-term psychological trauma.
It urged all parties involved in the conflict to protect civilians, particularly children, and to ensure that schools and other civilian infrastructure are not targeted.
“The military operations in Iran and across the region are devastating and present a serious threat to children,” the United Nations said. It stressed that civilians, schools and hospitals must not be targeted and that every child has the right to live free from fear.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) called on the US Congress to launch a transparent, independent investigation into the killings.
Even within the United States, the strike drew criticism. Former Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene called the deaths “heartbreaking and tragic.” “I did not campaign for this. I did not donate money for this. I did not vote for this,” she wrote on X.
Iran on Tuesday, March 4, held a mass funeral for the 165 killed. Coffins draped in Iranian flags were carried through the streets of Minab. Thousands attended. People wept and chanted.
The girls who died in Minab are part of a grim, growing count. It reflects a wider pattern seen in modern conflicts, where children often bear the heaviest consequences of war.
Across conflicts from Gaza and Syria to Sudan and Ukraine, children have repeatedly been among the most vulnerable victims. According to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), nearly one in five children worldwide now lives in areas affected by conflict, a significant increase over the past three decades.
In the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) alone, more than 12 million children have been killed, injured or displaced by violence in less than two years as of 2025, with a child affected by conflict roughly every few seconds.
In Minab, the number is 165. Girls between seven and 12, at their desks on a Saturday morning, in a school that no longer stands.
This post was last modified on March 5, 2026 1:51 pm