Avash News: An attack that began in the early hours of the war on the morning of February 28 with dozens of missiles and fighter jets turned within just a few hours into one of the deadliest civilian tragedies of the conflict—a disaster at a girls’ school in the city of Minab that has now become one of the most controversial cases of the war.
Early Friday morning, the skies over Iran suddenly turned into the scene of a full-scale war. At around 10 a.m., while many Iranian citizens were at work or going about their daily activities, the first wave of air and missile strikes began. According to military officials, these attacks targeted Iranian military centers and defense infrastructure and resulted in the killing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
However, only a few hours later, news emerged from the south of the country that pushed the war into a new phase: a missile striking a girls’ school in the city of Minab and the deaths of dozens of children.
What was initially reported as an unclear incident amid military clashes quickly turned into one of the most tragic and controversial events of the war—an incident whose official narrative has now been questioned by independent media investigations, particularly a detailed report by Al Jazeera’s Digital Investigations Unit.
News from the South: An Incident That Drew Attention
Initial reports stated that a building in the city of Minab had been struck by American missiles, and at first it was unclear what the exact target had been. Some reports suggested the missiles had struck near a military base, but it soon became clear that the building hit was a girls’ school.
Early reports mentioned only a limited number of casualties, but as time passed the scale of the tragedy became clearer. Images from the site showed a heavily damaged building where families and rescue teams were searching through the rubble for students. Gradually the number of victims increased, revealing that the incident had become one of the deadliest civilian attacks in recent regional wars.
Children Covered in Blood at a School in Minab
The “Shajareh Tayyebeh” Girls’ School in Minab was an educational building for elementary-level students. Most of the pupils were between 7 and 12 years old.
On the day of the incident, classes were in session. Some reports indicated that with the beginning of airstrikes across different regions of the country, local authorities had issued alerts. However, the time between the warnings and the explosion was so short that many families were unable to reach the school.
At the moment of impact, part of the school building was completely destroyed. The ceilings of the classrooms collapsed, and many students were trapped under the rubble.
Rescue workers and local residents began search operations within minutes, but the scale of destruction was so severe that it took hours to pull out the injured and the victims.
Reports also indicated that many students were still in their classrooms and had no opportunity to leave the building.
The Scale of the Disaster Revealed a Day Later
As rescue and search operations continued, the number of victims rose dramatically. Eventually, reports confirmed 165 deaths, most of them schoolgirls. Several members of the school staff were also among the victims.
Hospitals in the region were quickly overwhelmed with the influx of injured people. Some reports indicated that hospital morgues had reached capacity and that the bodies of victims were being stored in refrigerated trucks.
For many families, the tragedy meant losing more than one child. Images from the scene showed parents searching through the rubble for any sign of their children—scenes that quickly spread across social media and sparked strong emotional and political reactions both inside and outside Iran.
Reconstructing the Minab Disaster: Al Jazeera’s Investigation
Minutes after the explosion, the first videos from the scene appeared on social media. At first glance, the footage showed little more than rubble and smoke. But those same images later became key evidence in independent media investigations.
By carefully analyzing these videos and matching them with satellite images of the area, Al Jazeera’s Digital Investigations Unit reached conclusions that challenged the initial narrative of the incident.
Two Columns of Smoke Indicating Two Separate Targets
The videos showed two separate columns of smoke. One rose from inside a military base near the school, while the other rose from the girls’ school building itself.
Analysis of geographic coordinates and camera angles indicated that the two smoke columns corresponded exactly with the actual distance between the two buildings.
In other words, the school explosion was not caused by the blast wave or debris from an attack on the military base. Instead, it appeared to be the result of a direct strike by a separate missile. This finding was the first indication that the school may have been independently targeted.
A Decade of Separation from the Military Base
To investigate further, the Al Jazeera team examined satellite imagery from 2013 to 2026.
Their analysis revealed a clear pattern. In the early 2010s, the school had indeed been located inside a complex that was part of a military base. The school building, the base, and several other facilities were located within a single compound with shared walls and a common entrance.
However, in 2016, a significant change occurred.
Satellite images show that new walls were constructed separating different sections of the compound. Watchtowers that previously overlooked the school were removed, and new gates were built that allowed the school direct access to a public street.
As a result of these changes, the school was effectively separated from the military base and became an independent educational facility.
Later satellite images confirm this transformation. In images from 2018, the schoolyard can be seen with playground equipment and colorful drawings on the walls—clear signs that the building was fully dedicated to educational use.
The Clinic Located Between the Two Targets
Another key finding of the investigation concerns a building located between the school and the military base.
In 2025, a medical center called “Shahid Absalan Clinic” was opened within the same complex. Covering about 5,700 square meters, it offered services such as CT scans, ultrasound, laboratory testing, and specialized care for women and children.
Like the school, the clinic had also been separated from the military base by walls and had its own independent entrance to the public street.
Thus, what had once been a single military compound had gradually become three completely separate entities:
• a military base
• a girls’ school
• and a public clinic located between them.
However, during the attack, while missiles struck both the military base and the school, the clinic building—located directly between them—was not damaged at all.
Two Hypotheses Proposed by Al Jazeera
Based on these findings, the investigation presents two possible explanations.
The first possibility is that the intelligence used for the attack was extremely outdated, leading the attackers to believe the school was still part of the military base. In that case, the strike would have been based on information more than a decade old.
If this hypothesis is correct, analysts say it would represent a serious intelligence failure, one capable of causing large numbers of civilian casualties.
However, the fact that the clinic remained untouched weakens this explanation. The pattern of missile strikes raises an important question: how could an attack capable of selecting specific targets avoid hitting the newly built clinic while striking an active school?
The More Controversial Hypothesis
The second hypothesis is far more controversial.
According to this theory, the attackers may have been aware that the school and clinic were separate from the military base. If so, the strike on the school could not simply be attributed to faulty intelligence and may instead have been part of a strategy intended to create social shock and psychological pressure on society.
The False Claim About a Defensive Missile
In the days following the incident, some social media accounts claimed the school had been destroyed not by a foreign attack but by an Iranian air-defense missile.
However, this claim was quickly disproven.
Investigations revealed that the image used to support this claim actually belonged to an unrelated incident in Zanjan province, a mountainous and cold region more than 1,000 kilometers away from Minab.
Real images from Minab clearly show a coastal city with a warm climate, entirely different from the snowy environment shown in the misleading photograph.
Media analysts therefore described this as part of a narrative war in the media space, an attempt to shift responsibility before independent investigations could be completed.
Legal and Political Consequences
Under international law, attacks on civilian targets are among the most serious issues during wartime. According to international humanitarian law, schools and educational facilities are not legitimate military targets unless they are used for military operations.
Children are also classified as specially protected persons during armed conflict, and harming them can constitute a serious violation of the laws of war.
Al Jazeera’s investigation notes that the school was located about 200 to 300 meters from the military base and had its own independent access to a public street—features that clearly indicate it functioned as a separate civilian target.
Therefore, the investigation concludes that in both scenarios—whether due to faulty intelligence or deliberate targeting—the legal responsibility for the attack remains with those who carried it out.
Calls for Investigation
The Minab girls’ school tragedy has now become one of the most controversial events of the war, with major humanitarian, political, and legal implications.
While official narratives continue to compete with one another, Volker Türk, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, has called for an urgent investigation into the attack.
He emphasized that the primary responsibility for conducting the investigation lies with the forces that carried out the attack, urging them to publish their findings and ensure accountability and compensation for the victims and their families.
Yet this raises a fundamental ethical question: how can the same party accused of carrying out the attack be expected to conduct a truly impartial investigation?
Perhaps the most important issue remains unchanged. Whether this tragedy resulted from a fatal intelligence failure or from a deliberate wartime decision, it constitutes a clear war crime—a conclusion that independent human rights institutions have also emphasized.
