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'Up There With My Lai': Investigations Find US Was Likely Behind Iranian School Massacre
"If a US role were to be confirmed, the strike would rank among the worst cases of civilian casualties in decades of US conflicts in the Middle East."
Mar 06, 2026
US investigators reportedly believe that American forces were behind the bombing of an Iranian girls' school that killed more than 160 people—mostly young children—during the initial wave of attacks launched Saturday by President Donald Trump in coordination with the Israeli military.
Citing two unnamed officials, Reuters reported Thursday that US military investigators have found it is "likely" that American forces were responsible for the deadly strike on the school in the southern Iranian town of Minab, though the investigation has not yet been completed. Schools are protected under international law, and targeting them is a war crime.
"Reuters was unable to determine more details about the investigation, including what evidence contributed to the tentative assessment, what type of munition was used, who was responsible, or why the U.S. might have struck the school," the outlet noted. "The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military matters, did not rule out the possibility that new evidence could emerge that absolves the U.S. of responsibility and points to another responsible party in the incident."
"If a US role were to be confirmed," Reuters added, "the strike would rank among the worst cases of civilian casualties in decades of US conflicts in the Middle East."
HuffPost's Akbar Shahid Ahmed echoed Reuters' reporting, writing that Pentagon officials "told Congress in multiple briefings this week that they believed the US was most likely responsible (though probe ongoing)."
The reporting came on the heels of a New York Times analysis that concluded the US was "most likely to have carried out the strike," given that American forces were simultaneously bombarding an adjacent Iranian naval base. The Times also rejected the claim that an Iranian missile hit the elementary school.
"The strikes were first reported on social media shortly after 11:30 am local time," the Times reported. "An analysis of those posts—as well as bystander photos and videos captured within an hour of the strikes—helps corroborate that the school was hit at the same time as the naval base. One video, pinpointed by geolocation experts, showed several large plumes of smoke billowing from the area of the base and the school."
Beth Van Schaack, a former State Department official who currently teaches at Stanford University’s Center for Human Rights and International Justice, told the Times that "given the US' intelligence capabilities, they should have known that a school was in the vicinity."
Trump administration officials have said very little about the Iranian school strike in their triumphant rhetoric about the war, which Pentagon Secretary Pete Hegseth hailed as the "most lethal, most complex, and most precise aerial operation in history." Hegseth has also openly dismissed what he's called "stupid rules of engagement," rejecting constraints on US forces that are designed to prevent the killing of civilians.
Asked about the school strike during a March 4 press conference, Hegseth responded: "All I know—all I can say is that we're investigating that. We, of course, never target civilian targets, but we're taking a look and investigating that."
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio referred reporters to the Pentagon when asked about the attack, but added that "the United States would not target, deliberately target, a school," in purported contrast to the Iranian government, which Rubio claimed is "deliberately targeting civilians" because "they are a terroristic regime."
Two first responders to the scene of the attack, as well as a parent of one of the killed children, told Middle East Eye earlier this week that the school was hit by two strikes, a possible "double-tap" attack. An Al Jazeera investigation concluded the attack on the school was likely deliberate.
Jeremy Konyndyk, president of Refugees International, called the school attack "a horrific US war crime, up there with My Lai," referring to US soldiers' massacre of Vietnamese civilians in 1968. The US military initially covered up the massacre.
"In a sane world, Hegseth would resign, Congress would hold immediate hearings and establish an investigation, and the US would come clean," Konyndyk wrote on social media. "None of that is likely, so international mechanisms should kick in, including the [International Criminal Court]. And Hegseth should probably talk to a lawyer."
On Thursday, as US and Israeli officials vowed to ramp up their assault on Iran, two boys' schools southwest of Tehran were reportedly bombed.
"The targeting of civilians, educational facilities, and medical institutions constitutes a grave violation of international humanitarian law and human rights law," a group of United Nations experts said earlier this week.
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Trump and GOP Wage War on Children's Food Aid to Fund Tax Cuts for the Rich
The Republican Party's proposed cuts to nutrition assistance for children, said one analyst, "would be part of legislation that would give massive tax cuts to the wealthiest people and businesses."
Mar 13, 2025
The Trump administration and Republicans in Congress are waging a multi-front war on nutrition benefits for children, with the U.S. Department of Agriculture moving this week to end programs that provided over $1 billion in funding for schools and charity organizations to buy food from local farmers as GOP lawmakers simultaneously take aim at school meal programs as part of an effort to fund tax breaks for the wealthy.
Schools and farmers are "bracing for impact," as The Washington Post put it, after the USDA axed the Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement Program and the Local Food for Schools Cooperative Agreement Program as part of a purported effort to "return to long-term, fiscally responsible initiatives."
The Local Food for Schools Program, according to the USDA, "no longer effectuates agency priorities."
The decision to kill the programs could be disastrous for schools, childcare facilities, and other organizations that were expecting federal funding this year. Politico observed that "roughly $660 million that schools and childcare facilities were counting on to purchase food from nearby farms" has been terminated by the Trump administration.
"Trump and Elon Musk have declared that feeding children and supporting local farmers are no longer 'priorities,'" Democratic Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey said in a statement, noting that her state was set to receive $12.2 million "to provide local healthy food to childcare programs and schools, and to create new procurement relationships with local farmers and small businesses."
"Instead of strengthening our food supply chain and supporting students and food banks, the Trump White House wants cuts, chaos, and cruelty."
Rep. Shontel Brown (D-Ohio), vice ranking member of the House Agriculture Committee, said that "the Trump administration is proving to be bad for farmers, bad for children, and bad for people in need."
Food insecurity rose for the second consecutive year in 2024, and roughly 14 million children in the U.S. are food insecure, according to the nonprofit Feeding America.
"Instead of strengthening our food supply chain and supporting students and food banks, the Trump White House wants cuts, chaos, and cruelty," said Brown. "These two programs were a win-win for farmers and communities, and it is incredibly short-sighted to abruptly end them."
Congressional Republicans, meanwhile, are pushing for deep cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and Medicaid that "could make it harder for schools to operate meal programs and for families to obtain free or reduced-price school meals, Summer EBT, or benefits through the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC)."
That's according to an analysis published Wednesday by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), which noted that "school meal programs and Summer EBT use SNAP and Medicaid data to automatically enroll children."
"If low-income families with children lose their SNAP and/or Medicaid benefits, they would have to complete a school meal application instead of being automatically enrolled," CBPP warned. "In addition to diminished access to meals during the school year, families who are unable to successfully navigate the application process would no longer be automatically enrolled in Summer EBT. Families with children who lose SNAP and/or Medicaid would also lose their adjunctive income eligibility for WIC."
Zoë Neuberger, a senior fellow at CBPP, said that "as families struggle to keep up with the rising cost of food, Republicans in Congress are looking at making it harder for millions of children in families with low incomes to get free meals at school."
"Worse yet, the proposed cuts would be part of legislation that would give massive tax cuts to the wealthiest people and businesses," said Neuberger. "Congress should instead focus on removing red tape for schools and families so parents can afford groceries and children can get the meals they need for healthy development."
The School Nutrition Association (SNA), a national nonprofit whose members help provide meals to schools across the U.S., is sounding the alarm about three specific proposals that Republicans are weighing as they craft their sprawling reconciliation package:
- Restricting the Community Eligibility Provision;
- Requiring income verification with every free and reduced-price school meal application; and
- Ending Broad-Based Categorical Eligibility
"These proposals would cause millions of children to lose access to free school meals at a time when working families are struggling with rising food costs," SNA president Shannon Gleave warned in a statement earlier this week. "Meanwhile, short-staffed school nutrition teams, striving to improve menus and expand scratch-cooking, would be saddled with time-consuming and costly paperwork created by new government inefficiencies."
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Israel Kills 11 in Bombing of Gaza Shelter as Urgent Polio Vaccination Effort Begins
"We cannot vaccinate children and families who have to flee for safety," said a spokesperson for the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East.
Sep 02, 2024
The Israeli military killed nearly a dozen people Sunday in its latest bombing of a school-turned-shelter in the Gaza Strip, an attack that came amid limited pauses aimed at allowing relief workers to vaccinate Palestinian children against reemergent polio.
Israel's strike on the Safad school in Gaza City killed at least 11 people, including a woman and a girl, a spokesperson for Gaza's civil defense agency told Agence France-Presse.
The Israeli military claimed it was targeting a "Hamas command center" inside the school, which—like other Gaza schools that remain standing—was being used as a shelter for people displaced by Israel's nearly 11-month assault.
Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner-general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), said Monday that Israeli bombing has damaged or destroyed more than 70% of the schools it runs in the enclave.
"The vast majority of our schools are now overcrowded shelters with hundreds of thousands of displaced families. They cannot be used for learning," Lazzarini continued. "With no cease-fire, children are likely to fall prey to exploitation including child labor and recruitment into armed groups. We have seen this way too often in conflicts around the world, let’s not repeat it in Gaza."
"A cease-fire is a win for all: it will allow respite for civilians, the release of the hostages, and a flow of much-needed basic supplies including for learning," he added.
A school shelter in Gaza City was hit by an Israeli military air strike as a ‘pause’ in attacks began in other areas in Gaza under an agreement to allow a polio vaccination campaign. pic.twitter.com/Brl4ubHkjC
— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) September 2, 2024
The deadly attack came at the start of three days of localized humanitarian pauses to allow U.N. aid workers to vaccinate Palestinian children against polio amid growing fears of a mass outbreak of the infectious disease that has no known cure.
Last month, Gaza health officials detected the first polio case in more than two decades, heightening the urgency of a large-scale vaccination campaign—an effort made highly difficult by the Israeli military's relentless bombing and destruction of Gaza's healthcare infrastructure.
UNRWA said early Monday that its teams were able to vaccinate roughly 87,000 children on the first day of negotiated pauses even as Israeli airstrikes continued across the besieged enclave.
The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor said in a statement Sunday that "Israeli aircraft and tanks continue to bomb the central Gaza Strip, the area where the polio vaccination campaign has begun."
"Along with the ongoing shelling in various parts of the strip, these Israeli military attacks have coincided with the peak of families' movement with their children towards the designated vaccination centers," the group said. "Some of these attacks have even targeted locations near the vaccination centers, endangering the progress of the vaccination process that is required to stop the poliovirus from spreading among Palestinian children in the besieged enclave."
Louise Wateridge, a senior communications officer for UNRWA, told the BBC on Monday morning that "we cannot vaccinate children who are fearing for their lives."
"We cannot vaccinate children and families who have to flee for safety," said Wateridge as explosions rang out in the background. "We need these children to be able to come to the vaccination centers and receive these vaccines safely. And that's not possible when there's fighting like there is now."
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