Iran School Strike: Will the US Accept Responsibility for the Minab Attack?
- An attack on a school in Minab, a southern city in Iran, killed 156 people, including 120 children, on February 28, 2026.
- The strike involved a precision-guided Tomahawk missile, according to experts cited by the BBC.
- Nawal Al-Maghafi, the BBC’s senior international investigations correspondent, visited Minab to meet with survivors and the families of those killed in the February 28 attack.
An attack on a school in Minab, a southern city in Iran, killed 156 people, including 120 children, on February 28, 2026. According to the BBC, the incident occurred during the opening hours of the first day of a war between the United States and Israel against Iran and remains the deadliest single civilian attack of that conflict.
The strike involved a precision-guided Tomahawk missile, according to experts cited by the BBC. The report notes that neither Israel nor Iran are known to possess this specific weapon. Despite the evidence regarding the missile type, the United States government has not formally accepted responsibility for the strike five months after the event.
Investigation into the Minab School Strike
Nawal Al-Maghafi, the BBC’s senior international investigations correspondent, visited Minab to meet with survivors and the families of those killed in the February 28 attack. Her reporting focuses on the human impact of the strike and the lack of official accountability from the involved parties.
The casualty figures provided by the BBC indicate that children made up the vast majority of the dead, with 120 of the 156 total fatalities being students. The scale of the loss makes this the most lethal single incident for civilians since the start of the US-Israel war against Iran.
U.S. State Department Response
Tom Bateman, the BBC’s State Department correspondent, has attempted to obtain answers from U.S. officials regarding the strike on the school. According to the BBC, these efforts to secure a formal explanation or admission of responsibility from the U.S. government have not yet resulted in a confirmation of the strike’s origin.
The use of a Tomahawk missile is a central point of the investigation. Because the weapon is primarily associated with the U.S. military and is not known to be in the arsenals of the other primary combatants in the region, its presence at the site of the Minab school strike points toward U.S. involvement.