The UN’s top human rights official has urged the United States to finalize its investigation and release the findings into a strike on an Iranian primary school that occurred on the first day of the war last month.
Volker Türk, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said the bombing “evoked a visceral horror” during an urgent Human Rights Council debate in Geneva. He added that “there must be justice for the terrible harm done.”
Iranian officials report that the attack on Shajareh Tayyebeh school consisted of two rapid missile strikes, killing at least 168 people — around 110 of them children.
US media reports indicate that American military investigators believe US forces were likely responsible for unintentionally hitting the school. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has previously stated the matter is under investigation.
If the US role is confirmed, the strike would rank among the worst single incidents of civilian casualties in decades of US military involvement in the Middle East.
“The images of bombed-out classrooms and grieving parents showed clearly who pays the highest price for war: civilians with no power in the decisions that led to conflict,” Türk said.
He emphasized that “the onus is on those who carried out the attack to investigate it promptly, impartially, transparently and thoroughly,” and called for the US to conclude its probe swiftly and make the findings public.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi addressed the UN meeting via video, calling the bombing a “deliberate and intentional” attack by the United States. “This atrocity cannot be justified, cannot be concealed, and must not be met with silence and indifference,” he said.
Earlier this month, nearly every Democratic senator wrote to Hegseth demanding answers about the strike. The letter questioned whether outdated or faulty target analysis led to the school being hit, and raised concerns about Hegseth’s prior vow that there would be no “stupid rules of engagement” in the war — asking whether he had complied with regulations designed to prevent war crimes.
The Pentagon has said it will respond directly to the senators.
According to The New York Times, officers at US Central Command (Centcom) developed target coordinates for the strike using outdated data from the Defense Intelligence Agency. The intended target was an adjacent base belonging to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) — a facility the school building had once been part of.
However, Reuters reported that satellite imagery from mid-2015 showed the school building had been walled off from the rest of the base, and evidence suggests it had operated as a school since at least 2018, when painted murals were visible on its walls.
Expert video analysis confirmed the IRGC base was hit by a Tomahawk missile — a type of cruise missile used by the US that neither Israel nor Iran is known to possess. A video published by Iran’s semi-official Mehr news agency and verified by BBC Verify showed a missile moments before impact. Experts noted that the presence of a Tomahawk, combined with evidence of multiple strikes, points to a US operation.
On March 17, a UN fact-finding mission launched its own independent investigation into the strike.
Source: BBC News
