U.S. Strike on Iranian Primary School Killed 175-180 Children
On 28 February 2026, a U.S. military strike on an Iranian primary school in Minab killed 175-180 children. The strike was carried out using the Maven targeting system, which operated on outdated intelligence that classified the school building as a military facility, though it had been separated from an adjacent military compound and converted to a school by at least 2016.
What happened
On 28 February 2026, during Operation Epic Fury, American forces struck the Shajareh Tayyebeh primary school in Minab, southern Iran, hitting the building at least two times during the morning session and killing between 175 and 180 people, most of them girls between the ages of seven and 12.
The school building had been classified as a military facility in a Defense Intelligence Agency database that had not been updated to reflect that the building had been separated from an adjacent Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps compound and converted into a school, a change that satellite imagery shows had occurred by 2016 at the latest.
Reported impact
The strike killed at least 175 people, many of them children according to Iranian state media. Parents were hurrying to the two-story schoolhouse to take their children home to safety when the strike occurred.
Index analysis
The Maven targeting system, built by Palantir Technologies for the Pentagon, pulls together satellite imagery, signals intelligence and sensor data to identify targets and carry them through every step from first detection to the order to strike.
The school building had been walled off from the IRGC compound since 2015, with separate entrances added between mid-2015 and early 2016 according to satellite imagery analysis. An outdoor play area appears on Google Earth as early as 2017.
Governance controls
A preliminary Pentagon investigation found the reason for the strike may have been due to outdated data in the Defense Intelligence Agency database that classified the school as a military facility.
The locations of the school and clinic adjacent to or within the larger IRGC compound do not make them legitimate targets according to experts. Human Rights Watch called for a war crime investigation.
Classification
Sources and evidence
This record was researched and written by the Index, based on the following original reporting.