US military strikes in Iran resulted in unlawful civilian devastation that constitutes war crimes under international humanitarian law, according to findings released Thursday by a United Nations fact-finding mission. The comprehensive report prepared for the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva centers on two lethal bombardments carried out on February 28, which struck a primary educational facility in Minab and a municipal recreation center in Lamerd. International investigators concluded that American forces deployed precision weaponry against clearly identifiable civilian structures without verifying operational intelligence.
Scores of schoolgirls were killed in the early hours of the confrontation.
Investigators reported that the strike on the Shajareh Tayyebeh Primary School in southern Minab involved Tomahawk cruise missiles, killing more than 150 individuals, including roughly 120 children attending morning classes. The inquiry found no evidence that the walled educational facility was housing military hardware or serving armed personnel. On the same date, separate precision strikes rained tungsten shrapnel across a residential area and sports complex in Lamerd, killing and injuring 22 non-combatants.
Launching indiscriminate attacks against civilian property constitutes an explicit violation of the Geneva Conventions.
United States President Donald Trump asserted earlier this year that armed forces did not intentionally target an educational building, pointing to internal military reviews. While preliminary military assessments confirmed American ordnance was likely responsible due to outdated mapping coordinates, the Pentagon has yet to publish its formal investigative findings. The United Nations panel stated that operating on unverified data while fully cognizant of proximate civilian populations exceeded ordinary tactical negligence, amounting to criminal recklessness.
The report also severely censured Iranian domestic security forces for systematic human rights abuses.
Independent investigators documented that domestic security agencies committed crimes against humanity during operations to suppress nationwide civil unrest, deploying lethal gunfire, enforced disappearances, and arbitrary detentions alongside communications shutdowns. The mission noted that ordinary Iranian civilians are caught in catastrophic crosshairs between state violence at home and foreign military campaigns conducted by the United States and Israel.
United Nations delegates demanded an immediate cessation of hostilities and enforceable financial restitution for surviving family members.
Regional hostilities expanded simultaneously across neighboring operational theaters. In a televised address, Yemeni Houthi leader Abdul Malik al-Houthi defended operations against Saudi Arabian logistics networks as legitimate resistance against an enduring commercial blockade, dismissing allegations of strikes targeting holy sites in Mecca as battlefield fabrications. Concurrently, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reaffirmed during a state security ceremony in Jerusalem that military operations will persist until Hamas is dismantled, promising that governing institutions in Tehran and Hezbollah forces in Lebanon will be entirely overthrown.
