US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth has said the United States is investigating a strike on a girls' school in southern Iran that killed at least 165 students, according to Iranian officials. Hegseth was evasive when pressed on the incident, stating only that the US does not deliberately target civilian sites.
The attack occurred on Saturday at the Shajareh Tayyebeh school in Minab, on the first day of US and Israeli operations against Iran. Iranian state media reported that 96 others were injured, many of them pupils attending classes. The strike is the deadliest single event of the ongoing conflict.
The United Nations human rights office has called for an investigation into the bombing, though it did not assign blame. Iran's UN ambassador in Geneva, Ali Bahreini, had previously described the attack as 'unjustifiable' and 'criminal' in a letter to the UN human rights chief. The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child expressed alarm over strikes on civilian infrastructure, urging protection for children.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Monday that American forces 'would not deliberately target a school'. On Tuesday, thousands of mourners attended funerals in Minab for the victims. The conflict has now claimed over 800 lives across the Middle East since the US and Israel launched their opening attacks on Iran.
