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pete hegseth
'Beyond Evil': Medics Say Iran School Massacre Was Double-Tap Strike
"The second bomb hit," said one paramedic. "Only a small number of those who had taken shelter survived."
Mar 04, 2026
As the US and Israel continued to wage war on Iran Wednesday, paramedics and victims’ relatives said last weekend’s bombing of an elementary in southern Iran was a so-called "double-tap" airstrike—a common tactic used by US, Israeli, and Russian forces by which attackers bomb a target and then follow up with a second strike meant to kill survivors and first responders.
Iranian officials said that around 175 people—most of them young children—were killed when the Shajareh Tayyebeh girls’ elementary school in Minab was hit Saturday by what they said was a US-Israeli attack
“When the first bomb hit the school, one of the teachers and the principal moved a group of students to the prayer hall to protect them,” said one of two Iranian Red Crescent Society (IRCS) paramedics who spoke to Middle East Eye on condition of anonymity.
“The principal called the parents and told them to come and pick up their children," the paramedic added. "But the second bomb hit that area as well. Only a small number of those who had taken shelter survived... Some parents recognized their children only because of the gold bracelets they were wearing."
The father of a girl killed in the second strike on the facility told Middle East Eye that school officials "asked us to come as quickly as possible and take our daughter home.”
However, when he arrived at the school, "My little girl was completely burned."
“There was nothing left of her," he said. "We could only identify her from her school bag, which she was still holding."
"When I saw her smile after coming home from work, all my pain disappeared," the father added. "Now I don’t know what to do with this pain. I don’t know how to live with this.”
The mother of a boy slain in the strike told NBC News that the school also called her and told her to quickly come pick up her child.
“By the time we arrived, the entire school had collapsed on top of the children,” she said. “People were pulling out children’s arms and legs. People were pulling out severed heads.”
On Wednesday, Middle East Eye published a partial list containing the names and ages of 51 children—26 boys and 25 girls—one infant, and eight women killed in the school strike.
Thousands of mourners thronged the streets of Minab on Tuesday as funerals were held for the strike's victims.
Extraordinary crowds as a mass funeral procession begins in Minab, Iran for the 165 school girls & teachers killed in the US/Israeli school strike on Saturday.Many outcomes of this war are uncertain. But a renewed generation of hatred towards the West is now baked in.(🎥 Alireza Akbari)
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— News Eye (@newseye.bsky.social) March 2, 2026 at 11:57 PM
It is not known whether the school, which is located near an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps compound, was deliberately targeted.
“All that I know is that we’re investigating that. Of course, we never target civilians," said US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who oversees a military whose 21st century wars have killed more than 400,000 noncombatants, according to the Costs of War Project at Brown University's Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Monday that the Pentagon "would be investigating that, if that was our strike."
"Clearly, the United States would not deliberately target a school," Rubio added.
Since the late 20th century, the US has bombed—either deliberately or through inadequate target vetting and identification—schools in countries including Vietnam, Laos, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.
If carried out by the US, Saturday's strike in Minab is likely the deadliest American school bombing since 182 students, staff, and other civilians were massacred in an apparently deliberate secret strike on a school in Laos—the most heavily bombed country ever—during the Vietnam War.
Israel has bombed all levels of schools in Gaza as part of what critics have called a deliberate policy of scholasticide.
North Carolina-based independent journalist Lauren Steiner told Common Dreams Wednesday that the double-tap tactic is "beyond evil."
Other such strikes have been reported during the US-Israeli war on Iran, including the Sunday evening bombing of Niloofar Square in Tehran, where people were celebrating the end of their daily Ramadan fast.
“Suddenly there was the noise and explosion," one survivor, who was enjoying the evening at a café before the bombing, told Drop Site News. "We got up and a few people ran away. We turned around to get our belongings and we saw that blood was spraying everywhere. Someone’s hand had fallen on the floor, a head had fallen on the floor."
“When the second one hit, suddenly everything exploded," he added. "The windows all shattered... One of my friends whom I don’t know that well, he was sitting here... He was severed in half. Half of him was thrown to the side. I put him back together and placed him where he was. A piece of his brain was thrown here on the floor.”
⚡️ Witnesses Describe Horror Scene After “Double-Tap” Bombing Kills Over 20 at Popular Tehran SquareIn Iran, the US & Israel are employing tactics used in Israel’s genocide in Gaza, the “War...Story by Reza Sayah & @mazmhussain.bsky.social for Drop Site Newswww.dropsitenews.com/p/tehran-ira...
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— Drop Site (@dropsitenews.com) March 2, 2026 at 4:20 PM
The IRCS says more than 1,000 Iranians have been killed during four days of US and Israeli bombing, with Iran's retaliatory strikes killing six US service members, 11 Israelis, and a number of people in Gulf states that have come under Iranian bombardment.
"The enemy is exploiting every possible tactic to inflict maximum harm on our people," IRCS spokesperson Mojtaba Khaledi said Tuesday. "We beg the public: Do not rush to bombed areas. The first moments after an explosion are the most dangerous—some munitions are programmed to detonate again, turning rescuers and survivors into additional victims."
Some of the more infamous US double-tap strikes include the April 1999 Grdelica bridge bombing in Yugoslavia, which happened while a passenger train traveling from Belgrade, Serbia to Greece was crossing, killing more than 20 people; the March 2019 drone strike in Deir Ezzor, Syria that killed scores of civilians along with some Islamic State fighters; the April 2025 attack on Ras Isa port in al-Hudaydah, Yemen that massacred 84 civilians; and the bombing last September of a boat allegedly transporting drugs in the Caribbean Sea.
Israeli has carried out many double-tap strikes in Gaza, including last summer's attack on Nasser Hospital that killed more than 20 people including five journalists, and the July 2024 massacre of more than 90 people in a purported "safe zone" in al-Mawasi. Israel is facing a genocide case currently before the International Court of Justice in The Hague, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant are wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity, including murder and forced starvation.
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Damning CNN Supercut Exposes GOP Doublespeak About Trump's Iran War
"To Republicans in Congress: This is a war," said MS NOW host Joe Scarborough.
Mar 03, 2026
CNN on Monday aired a montage of Republican lawmakers and Trump administration officials that exposed major inconsistencies in how they discuss the unprovoked US-Israel war against Iran.
The supercut began with President Donald Trump on Saturday morning acknowledging that "we may have casualties" in the conflict with Iran because that "often happens in war."
The video then showed Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who told NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday that "I don't know if this is technically a war."
CNN put together a montage of conflicting messages from Republicans and administration officials on whether or not we’re in a war. pic.twitter.com/jJjNc85Buw
— Acyn (@Acyn) March 3, 2026
It then cut to a clip of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Monday giving a news conference in which he said, "We didn't start this war, but under President Trump, we are finishing it."
The video went next Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.), who declaratively told CNN on Monday that "this isn't a war," before cutting back to Hegseth saying, "We set the terms of this war, from start to finish."
Next, Rep. Brian Mast (R-Fla.), was shown telling CNN Saturday that "I don't think I don't think anybody should classify this as war," before cutting back to Hegseth saying, "War is hell, and always will be."
Reacting to the montage, CNN host Abby Phillip said, "It does seem like we're in a war."
MS NOW host Joe Scarborough, a former GOP congressman from Florida, reposted the CNN video and urged elected Republicans to be honest with US voters.
"To Republicans in Congress: This is a war," he wrote. "Just ask the President."
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US Commanders Want to Make War With Iran as ‘Bloody’ as Possible to Bring About Biblical End Times, Officers Report
One noncommissioned officer said he was directed to tell his troops that Trump was "anointed by Jesus" and that war with Iran was "all part of God’s divine plan" to bring about Armageddon.
Mar 03, 2026
In less than a week, the US and Israel's war has rendered unfathomable suffering upon the people of Iran. Over 180 schoolgirls and staffers were killed in a massacre this weekend, and several hospitals have reportedly been struck, amid numerous other attacks on civilians.
But some US troops are being told the bloodletting is all a part of God's plan.
At a briefing on Monday, as President Donald Trump unleashed what has been called a "carpet bombing" of Tehran, a combat-unit commander reportedly told noncommissioned officers (NCOs) that the commander-in-chief was “anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to Earth."
The complaint, sent by one of those noncommissioned officers, was just one of at least 110 similar reports received by the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) since Trump first launched strikes on Saturday.
In compliance with the First Amendment, the Department of Defense has long adopted rules against proselytizing within the armed forces. But under Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, an evangelical Christian who has said the West must wage a "crusade" against Islam, Christian nationalist invocations in the military have become commonplace.
Mikey Weinstein, the president and founder of MRFF and an Air Force veteran who served in the White House of former President Ronald Reagan, told independent journalist Jonathan Larsen that the group has been “inundated” with complaints from NCOs since Saturday, which all have “one damn thing in freaking common.”
"Our MRFF clients report the unrestricted euphoria of their commanders and command chains as to how this new 'biblically-sanctioned' war is clearly the undeniable sign of the expeditious approach of the fundamentalist Christian 'End Times' as vividly described in the New Testament Book of Revelation," Weinstein said.
"Many of their commanders," he added, "are especially delighted with how graphic this battle will be, zeroing in on how bloody all of this must become in order to fulfill and be in 100% accordance with fundamentalist Christian end-of-the-world eschatology."
According to Larsen, who first reported on the MRFF's findings on Monday, the message has been spread far and wide as US troops rained missiles down upon Iran.
Larsen reported that the "complaints came from more than 40 different units spread across at least 30 military installations," and have involved commanders in every branch of the US military.
One noncommissioned officer, who did not identify himself out of fear of retaliation, said his commander “urged us to tell our troops that this was ‘all part of God’s divine plan’ and he specifically referenced numerous citations out of the Book of Revelation referring to Armageddon and the imminent return of Jesus Christ.”
The NCO added that his commander "had a big grin on his face when he said all of this, which made his message seem even more crazy."
"Our commander would probably be described as a 'Christian First' supporter," he said. "He has been this way for a very long time and makes it clear that he desires all of us under him to become just like him as a Christian. But what he did this morning was so toxic and over the line that it shocked many of us in attendance at the ops readiness briefing."
The NCO identified himself as a Christian, but emailed MRFF on behalf of 15 of his troops, which included at least one Muslim and one Jewish person.
He said that their commanders' remarks “destroy morale and unit cohesion and are in violation of the oaths we swore to support the Constitution.”
Christian nationalism has long simmered just under the surface of US military culture and has been invoked by presidents of the past, including George W. Bush, who referred to his War on Terror as a "crusade."
But Hegseth, who regularly hosts Christian prayer services at the Pentagon during work hours, rails against "secular humanism" and the "godless left," and has hosted the notorious fundamentalist pastor Doug Wilson—who opposes the right of women to vote and calls for the US to be a Christian theocracy—at the Pentagon, has dropped any pretenses of religious pluralism.
"While America’s relationship with Iran is influenced by all the typical geopolitical factors of oil, culture, and nuclear weaponry, there is a part of American foreign policy that is influenced by apocalyptic evangelical theology," wrote Josh Olds, a pastor and theologian, on Monday for Baptist News Global.
Christian fundamentalists, some of whom have the ear of the White House, he said, view an Iranian war with Israel as central to triggering Armageddon, during which God will miraculously strike down Israel's enemies, Jesus will return to Earth, and Christians will be raptured to Heaven, according to Biblical teachings.
He said that while Iran's Muslim leaders are often accused of being dangerously irrational out of blind religious fundamentalism, "it is increasingly clear that American actions are shaped by it as well."
In just over three days, US and Israeli strikes have killed at least 787 people in Iran, according to a Tuesday report from the Iranian Red Crescent Society, including hundreds of civilians. In addition to schools and hospitals, attacks have been reported against crowded residential buildings, a radio and TV broadcast center, and a sports complex.
"Donald Trump partnered with Israel to bomb Iran because of the influence of an eschatology that sees conflict with Iran as setting the stage for fulfilled prophecy," Olds said. "The irony is profound: A faith centered on loving enemies and making peace becomes a framework that welcomes and advocates violence. The result is not the advance of God’s kingdom but its irrevocable damage in the eyes of the world."
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