A Tomahawk cruise missile strike destroyed the Shajareh Tayyebeh Elementary School in Minab, a port town in Hormozgan province on Iran's southern coast, on 28 February 2026, the opening day of the 2026 Iran War. 156 people were killed, most of them schoolgirls between seven and twelve years old, making the strike the single deadliest civilian-casualty event of the war. A subsequent US military inquiry attributed the strike to American forces and traced it to a targeting error rooted in outdated intelligence, though full findings had not been made public more than four months later.

The school sat inside the outer perimeter of the Sayyid al-Shuhada military complex, home to the Asif Brigade of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy (IRGCN), a branch of Iran's armed forces. Satellite imagery reviewed by independent investigators showed the building had been physically walled off from the adjacent naval compound by 2016, with its own civilian entrances and no military checkpoints, after functioning as an ordinary elementary school for boys and girls (taught on separate floors) for more than a decade.

According to US officials and reporting that followed the strike, Defense Intelligence Agency target data used on the war's first day still classified the building as part of the military compound, a designation dating to before the 2013 to 2016 period when the school was physically separated from it.¹ A CNN investigation reported in July 2026 that targeting systems had flagged the coordinates as requiring re-verification before any strike, but that senior officers approved the target anyway for the sake of expediency as planners assembled a large strike list on the opening day of the war.^1,9 Two people familiar with the targeting process said the site had alternately been logged as a factory or an arms depot before it was approved, and raised questions about the role of AI-assisted targeting tools used to process target packages at high volume during the opening hours of the campaign.¹

Strikes across Iran began around 10:00 a.m. local time on 28 February 2026. Between 10:23 and 10:45 a.m., the Shajareh Tayyebeh school was hit in what Minab's mayor and Iran's Ministry of Education described as a triple tap, three successive strikes on the same site.¹ The school's principal had already begun an early dismissal after strikes were reported nationwide, and survivors and Red Crescent medics said a second strike hit the room where she had gathered students after the first impact collapsed part of the building.¹

Search and recovery operations continued for days. By 1 March, Iranian authorities reported more than 108 children killed, a figure that continued rising as rescue crews worked through the rubble, with bodies held in refrigerated trucks after local morgue capacity was exceeded.⁶ A mass funeral was held in Minab's central square on 3 March, attended by thousands. On 4 March, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Washington was investigating whether an American strike had caused the deaths but insisted the US would not deliberately target a school, while President Donald Trump initially claimed, without evidence, that the strike had been carried out by Iran because Iranian munitions were very inaccurate, a claim fact-checkers rejected since Iran does not possess Tomahawk missiles.¹

By 5 March, Reuters reported that US military personnel involved in the strike believed American forces were likely responsible, and on 11 March the New York Times reported that a preliminary Pentagon inquiry had reached the same conclusion.^1,2 Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth promised a thorough investigation on 13 March, a statement Iranian officials and rights groups read as tacit acknowledgment of US responsibility. Iran's final death toll, confirmed by the Minab prosecutor's office, was set at 156 on 9 April 2026, comprising 120 schoolchildren, 26 teachers, seven parents, a bus driver, a pharmacy technician from an adjacent clinic and a six-month-old fetus, with 95 more people injured.¹ The United Nations opened its own inquiry into the strike on 17 March.⁸

What happened at the Minab school attack? A missile strike destroyed an elementary school in Minab, Iran, on 28 February 2026, killing 156 people, most of them schoolgirls, on the first day of the 2026 Iran War.¹

Who was responsible for the Minab school strike? US military investigations and independent analysts identified a US Tomahawk cruise missile as the weapon, attributing the strike to a targeting error based on outdated intelligence that still listed the school as part of an adjacent Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps naval compound.^2,3

Did Israel bomb the Minab school? No credible investigation found Israeli involvement. Early reports and social media claims blaming Israel or an IRGC air-defense failure were debunked, including photos falsely presented as evidence that were actually taken elsewhere.¹

How many people died in the Minab school attack? Iranian authorities confirmed a final toll of 156 dead on 9 April 2026, including 120 schoolchildren, after early estimates in the days after the strike ranged higher.¹

Was the Minab strike ruled a war crime? No formal legal ruling had been issued as of mid-2026. Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and several international law scholars said the strike should be investigated as a potential war crime, while the Pentagon's own findings remained unpublished.^5,11