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'Have You Investigated Those Claims' of Civilians Killed by US in Iran? CENTCOM Chief: 'We Have Not'
With more than 1,700 civilians, including hundreds of children, reportedly killed during US-Israeli bombarding of Iran, one advocacy group said that "more pressure and oversight on these war crimes is urgently needed."
May 14, 2026
While claiming that the subject of civilian casualties is his “passion” before US lawmakers during a US Senate hearing on Thursday, the head of US Central Command was asked directly if he and his team had investigated a litany of reports about civilians being killed or maimed by US bombs in Iran. His answer? No.
Commander Adm. Brad Cooper appeared before the Senate Armed Services Committee for a hearing on US Central Command (CENTCOM) and US Africa Command (AFRICOM) concerning the Trump administration's request for $1.5 trillion in military spending authorization for 2027.
During the questioning, Cooper refuted reports that US-Israeli airstrikes have hit 22 schools in Iran and raised eyebrows for his answers regarding cuts to Pentagon programs meant to mitigate harm to noncombatants.
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY)—who last month led the introduction of a defeated war powers resolution aimed at stopping President Donald Trump's "reckless" attack on Iran—pressed Cooper about US conduct in the war. She cited New York Times reporting that 22 schools and 17 healthcare facilities have been destroyed or damaged since Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu launched the illegal war of choice on February 28.
"We have regulations. We have the law of war. We have human rights obligations. We have our own targeting requirements to avoid civilian harm and death," Gillibrand said. "Have you been implementing all the laws that are required under current law to minimize civilian death?"
.@SenGillibrand presses CENTCOM Commander Cooper on the bombing of schools and hospitals in Iran.
Cooper’s response is woefully insufficient, denying that more than one such bombing took place, despite widespread documentation of bombings destroying protected civilian sites. pic.twitter.com/8gy6Zx6eg2
— NIAC (@NIACouncil) May 14, 2026
"We follow all the procedures and have gone above and beyond to, in my case, personally warn the Iranian people of several instances during conflict where they were being potentially used as human targets," the admiral said.
Asked by Gillibrand "how did we then bomb 22 schools," Cooper countered that "there is no indication that we have that has been corroborated."
The Iranian Red Crescent Society claimed last month that at least 60 students and 10 staff members were killed in US-Israeli attacks on 32 universities and 857 schools.
Pressed by the senator on "how many schools" the US has bombed, Cooper retorted that "there is one active civilian casualty investigation from the 13,629 munitions" used to attack Iran.
The admiral was presumably referring to the February 28 cruise missile strike on the Shajareh Tayyebeh girls’ elementary school in Minab, which killed 156 students and staff and wounded 95 others. Trump and senior administration officials initially denied responsibility for the massacre, but physical evidence, journalistic investigations, and a preliminary Pentagon probe indicate US culpability.
A skeptical Gillibrand repeated her question about 22 schools "and multiple hospitals" being bombed.
"There's no way that we can corroborate that," Cooper replied. "No indication of that whatsoever."
The senator asked for clarification: "There's no way you can corroborate, or no indication of it? Which one?"
Cooper answered, "No indication."
"Well, the indication is what's publicly available," Gillibrand fired back. "There is indication. Have you investigated those claims?"
The admiral replied, "We have not."
Gillibrand continued: "Why have you not? If this is a passion of yours, if you believe that the civilian casualties are not consistent with the law of war and not consistent with human rights obligations... why have you not investigated those allegations when they're publicly being made on the cover of The New York Times?"
The senator then asked how Cooper has "managed the 90% cut to the personnel who are supposed to avoid civilian targets," a reference to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's gutting of the Biden-era Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response Action Plan (CHMR-AP), which laid out a series of policy steps aimed at preventing and responding to the death and injury of noncombatants.
The plan, which was implemented after US forces killed an estimated 432,000 civilians since late 2001 during the so-called War on Terror, was skeptically welcomed for its commitment to reducing harm to noncombatants. However, Hegseth said at the outset of the Iran War that US forces would not be bound by “stupid rules of engagement" and would instead prioritize “lethality."
The Pentagon eliminated the entire civilian harm office at Joint Special Operations Command, removed related specialists from target development teams, and slashed CENTCOM's civilian harm mitigation team from 10 people to just one full-time staffer.
Cooper told Gillibrand that he would be "happy to provide any report" on the matter.
Iranian officials and human rights groups say more than 1,700 Iranian civilians have been killed by US and Israeli attacks since February 28. US and Israeli use of artificial intelligence systems to select bombing targets exponentially faster than any person has also raised concerns regarding a lack of meaningful human oversight. One former IDF officer said AI enabled a “mass assassination factory” in Gaza, where more than 250,000 Palestinians have been killed or wounded by Israeli forces since the Hamas-led attack of October 7, 2023.
The National Iranian American Council (NIAC) said after the exchange with Gillibrand that "Cooper’s response is woefully insufficient, denying that more than one such bombing took place, despite widespread documentation of bombings destroying protected civilian sites."
"More than 1,700 civilians, including hundreds of children, were killed in the bombardment of Iran," NIAC added. "Dozens of schools and hospitals were damaged and destroyed by the dropping of massive bombs in urban areas. More pressure and oversight on these war crimes is urgently needed."
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Trump Admin Denies That Iran Hit US Warship Entering Strait of Hormuz
One foreign policy expert urged skepticism of the administration's claim, noting its consistent pattern of "immediate, unequivocal denial, then slowly dribbling out confirmation."
May 04, 2026
The Trump administration has denied reports from Iranian media on Monday that a US Navy warship was hit in the Strait of Hormuz.
After US President Donald Trump said this weekend that the US Navy would help “guide” commercial ships through the strait, in what was referred to as "Project Freedom," an Iranian official described it as a ploy to "provoke" retaliation and pledged that any vessels attempting to navigate the waterway without authorization would be "promptly intercepted" by Iranian forces.
According to Iranian news agencies, that is just what occurred on Monday morning. The Fars News Agency, which is linked to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), said that according to local news sources, “two missiles” had made impact in an attack on a US Navy frigate that had entered the strait without permission from the Iranian government.
It said the ship “violated security protocols for transit and navigation near Jask with the intent to pass through the Strait of Hormuz, [and] came under missile attack after ignoring warnings from the Islamic Republic of Iran’s Navy.” Fars added that the ship "has been prevented from continuing its course due to these strikes and has been forced to retreat and flee the area."
In a comment to Reuters, a senior Iranian official added that it was unclear whether the warship had sustained any damage.
The Tasnim news agency published a statement from the Iranian army’s public relations department, saying that “with the decisive and swift warning from the Navy of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the entry of enemy American Zionist destroyers into the Strait of Hormuz area was prevented.”
US Central Command (CENTCOM) quickly denied the claim, posting a "fact check" on social media.
"CLAIM: Iranian state media claims that Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps hit a US warship with two missiles," the post said. "TRUTH: No US Navy ships have been struck. US forces are supporting Project Freedom and enforcing the naval blockade on Iranian ports."
Another post stated that "US Navy guided-missile destroyers are currently operating in the Arabian [Persian] Gulf after transiting the Strait of Hormuz in support of Project Freedom" and that "American forces are actively assisting efforts to restore transit for commercial shipping."
It added that "as a first step, two US-flagged merchant vessels have successfully transited through the Strait of Hormuz and are safely headed on their journey."
Iran's shuttering of the Strait of Hormuz to unauthorized ships has allowed it to wreak havoc on the Western economy in retaliation for the war launched by the US and Israel at the end of February.
About 20% of the globe's seaborne oil shipments pass through the waterway, and its closure has caused global oil prices to spike, driving US gas prices to more than $4 on average and rippling inflation through the economy.
Observers of open-source marine tracking reports have said it did not show that two US-flagged merchant ships passed through the strait on Monday. However, it is possible the ships could have navigated the strait with the tracking technology disabled.
While information from the strait remains scarce, Matt Duss, a former foreign policy adviser to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has said the public should remain skeptical of the Trump administration's denials given its track record.
"Watch closely," he wrote on social media. "The Trump administration's consistent pattern has been immediate, unequivocal denial, then slowly dribbling out confirmation that 'yeah, that happened, it was bad, actually very bad,' and hope coverage has already moved on, and no one notices."
As an example, he pointed to the first Trump administration's claim following the 2020 assassination of IRGC Gen. Qassem Soleimani that retaliatory attacks against the Al Asad airbase, a US military installation, had resulted in zero casualties.
“Initially, Trump claimed, ‘We suffered no casualties,’” Duss said. “In the weeks that followed, we learned that there were actually over 100 casualties." At least 109 US troops had suffered brain injuries from the strikes, according to the Pentagon.
More recently, CENTCOM initially denied claims that Iran had shot down US fighter jets in early April, claiming that "all aircraft are accounted for" when a plane had, in fact, been shot down, requiring a multi-day operation to rescue two pilots from Iranian territory.
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New Evidence Bolsters Claim That US Lied About Another Iran Airstrike Massacre
Munitions experts and The New York Times say a US missile designed to inflict maximum casualties was used in a February bombing that killed 21 people, including at least five children.
Apr 11, 2026
New information published Friday by the New York Times further suggests that the US military may have lied when it tried to pin the blame for a February airstrike that killed 21 people in Iran on the Iranian government, with evidence indicating that the US carried out the attack with a new missile designed to inflict maximum casualties.
While much of the world knows about the February 28 massacre of around 175 children and staff at the Shajareh Tayyebeh girls’ elementary school in Minab—and about how President Donald Trump initially blamed Iran for the slaughter—the strike that hit a sports hall and playground in Lamerd on the same day, the first day of the war, received far less media coverage.
Munitions experts and the Times concluded that US-made Precision Strike Missiles, or PrSMs—pronounced "prism"—struck the residential area of the southern Iranian city. Developed by Lockheed Martin, PrSMs are airburst weapons, exploding above their targets and blasting 180,000 lethal tungsten pellets in every direction. Video footage of the Lamerd strike shows multiple airbursts.
Pete Hegseth's Defense Dept appears to be caught in a lie.It involves deaths of 21 people (including at least 5 children), injuring 110 in Lamerd, Iran with sports hall and school.By a U.S. missile (PrSM) never before used in combat.NYT sources include: 3 US officials!1/
[image or embed]
— Ryan Goodman (@rgoodlaw.bsky.social) April 10, 2026 at 5:48 PM
The Times verified the identities of 21 people killed in the strike. At least five victims were children, the youngest of them just 2 years old. Helma Ahmadizadeh, 10, and Elham Zaeri, 11, were attending volleyball practice at the sports hall when it was bombed. Helma survived the strike with no visible injuries. However, she told her coach that she felt something enter her body. A medical examination at a local hospital revealed a small object in her body. She subsequently died.
"A young boy, Ilia Khatami, was killed alongside his coach, Mahmoud Najaf," the newspaper said. "The Times confirmed their deaths, and the death of a second boy, Abdul Mosavar Rahmani, who was from Afghanistan."
The 2-year-old, Avina Barzegar, was mortally wounded by a small object while she was playing outside her home. Video posted on Telegram shows her being treated in a local hospital before she died.
Local officials said 100 other people were injured in the attack.
Pentagon officials previously denied US responsibility for the attack following the March 29 publication of a Times investigation that used video analysis to identify PrSMs as the missiles used in the strike. US Central Command (CENTCOM) spokesperson Capt. Tim Hawkins issued a statement on March 31 calling reports that the US carried out the attack "false" and suggesting that weapon used in the strike was an Iranian Hoveyzeh cruise missile.
The Times' latest analysis is "based on new video footage of detonations, new photo evidence of the damage, a missile-trajectory assessment, and the perspectives of multiple experts, including three US government officials."
Findings include distinctive damage patterns consistent with tungsten pellet dispersion from a PrSM airburst, the discovery of a third detonation site consistent with a PrSM, a strike trajectory indicating the missile was launched from where US forces are based, and the sports hall's proximity to an Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps base. The Minab girls' school is also located very close to an IRGC base.
Critically, Iran does not have any missiles in its arsenal that function in a similar manner to PrSMs.
“The problem is that CENTCOM chose as an alternative a very identifiable missile,” Amaël Kotlarski, who leads the weapons team at the defense intelligence firm Janes, told the Times. "And the Hoveyzeh’s distinct features aren’t seen in the video."
Shahryar Pasandideh, another military analyst consulted by the Times, said "there is no public information to suggest that Iranian cruise missiles, including the Hoveyzeh, are equipped with an airburst fuse, let alone an airburst fuse and pre-formed tungsten pellets."
After the Minab massacre, Trump claimed that Iran had somehow acquired a US Tomahawk missile and used it to blow up the school.
An earlier investigation by the BBC Verify also concluded that the Lamerd strike was carried out using US PrSM missiles.
VIDEO | According to a report from BBC Verify, video evidence and expert assessment suggest a US Precision Strike Missile (PrSM) was likely involved in an attack on a sports hall in Lamerd, southwestern Iran on 28 February. The attack killed at least 21 people, including… pic.twitter.com/alZ25dVMl6
— The Cradle (@TheCradleMedia) March 29, 2026
More than 3,000 people have been killed over 42 days of US and Israeli strikes on Iran, according to medical officials there. This figure reportedly includes over 1,300 civilians, hundreds of whom are women and children.
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