More Than 100 School Children Were Killed in Iran. Evidence Points to a U.S. Missile Strike

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by Philip Wang and Richard Hall

Mar 11, 2026 6:27 PM CUT

An aerial view of a graveyard as funerals are held for students and staff from a girls' school, who authorities said were killed in a US-Israeli strike on February 28, on March 3, 2026 in Minab, Iran.

An aerial view of a graveyard as funerals are held for students and staff from a girls' school, who authorities said were killed in a US-Israeli strike on February 28, on March 3, 2026 in Minab, Iran.Handout–Getty Images

by Philip Wang and Richard Hall

Mar 11, 2026 6:27 PM CUT

It was the beginning of the week at the Shajareh Tayyebeh Primary School, a two-story building painted with pink flowers and green leaves in the southern Iranian town of Minab, when the war began.  

The children were in class, around 10 a.m., when news of the first wave of U.S.-Israeli airstrikes was beginning to trickle through. Parents received panicked phone calls and text messages telling them to pick up their children. 

There was not enough time. Less than an hour later, while many parents were at the school and others were still on the way, a missile slammed into the building, reducing it to rubble. Witnesses recounted to Iranian state media a second strike, as survivors of the first sheltered in a hall.

Some 175 people were killed, at least 108 of them children, a representative of the Coordinating Council of Iranian Teachers’ Trade Associations, a network of teachers’ unions in Iran, told TIME. The rest of the victims were parents and teachers. 

Read more: More Than 100 Reported Killed in Strike on Girls’ Elementary School in Iran. Here’s What We Know

In the days after the deadly incident, neither Israel nor the United States military claimed responsibility. When asked by a reporter on Saturday whether the U.S. military may have been behind the strike, President Donald Trump blamed Iran.   
“No. In my opinion and based on what I’ve seen, that was done by Iran,” he said. “They’re very inaccurate, as you know, with their munitions.”

But a growing body of evidence has emerged since—including verified video of the strike, satellite imagery, and expert analysis—that suggests the U.S. military was likely responsible. 

If confirmed, it would represent one of the worst civilian casualty incidents for the U.S. military in recent decades.

The New York Times reported on Wednesday that the preliminary findings of a military investigation into the strike have determined that the U.S. was responsible, according to unnamed U.S. officials and others familiar with the findings. The investigation found that officers at U.S. Central Command used outdated data from the Defense Intelligence Agency when it included the school on its list of targets.

The Department of Defense and U.S. Central Command declined to provide comment for this story. As recently as Monday, Trump insisted that another country could have been responsible.  

In response to questions from TIME about the strike, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt responded: "The investigation is still ongoing.”

Here is what the available evidence shows so far. 

Several precision strikes

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The Shajareh Tayyebeh Primary School was located next to a naval base operated by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). It was attended by a mix of children of military families and locals drawn by the low tuition fees—some from the town of Minab itself, and others from outside. 

The building that houses the school was once part of the same sprawling complex that houses the base, but satellite images reviewed by TIME and Human Rights Watch show that at least ten years ago, in 2016, it was walled off from the rest of the compound. Separate street entrances were created to allow school entry without passing through the compound. By August 2017, according to an analysis of satellite imagery by Human Rights Watch, the marking lines of a soccer pitch were clearly visible in the courtyard of the newly walled-off school. To anyone who would have looked, it was clearly a school. 

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“Over the past decade or so, there have been a range of changes in this compound that should have raised clear indications around this school being something that should have been avoided for targeting,” Michael Page, Deputy Middle East Director at Human Rights Watch, told TIME.

“So the question is, if it is the U.S., how did they come to identify it on their strike list? Or why were there no additional protections or safeguards in place to remove it from a target list? Because if you look at the munitions, it does seem to be precisely targeted,” he added. 

Tomahawks

In the days after the attack, visual and physical evidence emerged that identified the likely munition used in the barrage of missiles that hit the school and the compound next to it. 

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A video released by Iranian news agency Mehr News and first geolocated by news outlet Bellingcat appears to show a U.S.-made Tomahawk missile hitting a clinic near the school on Feb. 28, matching the timeline of the school strike. 

It was filmed from a construction site across the street from the base, according to a New York Times geolocation analysis. In the video, smoke can already be seen rising from the direction of the school. 

Two munitions experts interviewed by TIME identified the munition in the video as a Tomahawk— a U.S. made precision missile. Only two other countries are known to have Tomahawk missiles: Australia and Britain, neither of which is party to the conflict. Japan and the Netherlands have also been approved to purchase the missiles. 

“The video taken on February 28, 2026, conclusively shows a Tomahawk cruise missile diving almost vertically into the area of the medical clinic adjacent to an IRGC facility. The black color, ‘cruciform’ wings, and small tail fins match known imagery of Tomahawks,” John Gilbert, Senior Science Fellow at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation in Washington D.C., told TIME.  

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Sam Lair, a Research Associate at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies in California, also confirmed to TIME that the missile in the video was a Tomahawk.  

On Monday, photographs of fragments of the missile that purportedly hit the Shajareh Tayyebeh school were shared on Telegram by Iran’s state broadcaster. The images were described by the broadcaster as “the remains of the American missile that landed on the children of Minab school.” 

Photos from state media showed weapon remnants displayed near the ruins of the Shajarah Tayyebeh elementary school. IRIB

TIME cannot independently verify the images or where the fragments were collected from, but among the remnants were components consistent with a Tomahawk missile, according to expert analysis by the New York Times and CNN. 

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In addition to the visual evidence and remnants gathered from the scene, the Pentagon has published video and images of warships firing Tomahawk missiles at Iran on Feb. 28, the day the school strike took place. 

When asked on Monday about the mounting evidence that a Tomahawk was used in the attack, Trump claimed that another country could have fired the missile. 

“Well, I haven’t seen it and I will say that the Tomahawk, which is one of the most powerful weapons around, is used by, you know, is sold and used by other countries,” he said.

He then falsely claimed that Iran “also has some Tomahawks.” 

“But whether it’s Iran or somebody else, the fact that a Tomahawk, a Tomahawk, is very generic. It’s sold to other countries. But that’s being investigated right now.”

When pressed, he added: “I just don’t know enough about it,” he said.

Rules of engagement

During a press conference on March 2, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth hailed the U.S. military operation against Iran, saying America “is unleashing the most lethal and precise air power campaign in history.”

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“No stupid rules of engagement, no nation-building quagmire, no democracy building exercise, no politically correct wars,” he said.

In the aftermath of the attack, numerous lawmakers and rights groups have called for an investigation into the strike to determine what mistakes may have led to the school being included on the list of targets. 

On Monday, ten U.S. Democratic senators released a joint statement saying they were “horrified” by analysis that “credibly suggests the strike may have been conducted by U.S. forces, which if true, would make it one of the worst cases of civilian casualties in decades of American military action in the Middle East.” 

“The killing of school children is appalling and unacceptable under any circumstance. This incident is particularly concerning in light of Secretary Hegseth’s openly cavalier approach to the use of force, including his statement that U.S. strikes in Iran wouldn’t be bound by ‘stupid rules of engagement,’ in his words,” the statement, signed by Senators Brian Schatz (D-Hawai‘i), Patty Murray (D-Wash.), Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), Jack Reed (D-R.I.), Mark Warner (D-Va.),and Chris Coons (D-Del.). 

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Human Rights Watch has similarly called for a full investigation and a possible prosecution of war crimes. 

“A prompt and thorough investigation is needed into this attack, including if those responsible should have known that a school was there and that it would be full of children and their teachers before midday,” said Sophia Jones, open source researcher with the Digital Investigations Lab at Human Rights Watch. “Those responsible for an unlawful attack should be held to account, including prosecutions of anyone responsible for war crimes.” 

Page, also with HRW, said the Trump Administration’s removal of key protocols for civilian protection in wartime may have also played a role. 

“The U.S., under the Trump administration, has weakened all of these protections. They've terminated senior military lawyers, they've loosened the targeting protocols, they've removed what are called civilian environment teams, and red teams, from the operational chain of command,” he said.  

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“All of those are really essential safeguards in place if you are going to carry out this large-scale countrywide campaign over a country of 92 million people,” he said.