Satellite imagery, particularly of the smoke rising from the targeted sites, found that the strike hit the military base and the school.
The joint Israel-United States attack on the girls’ school in Iran that killed 165 schoolgirls and teachers was likely deliberate, an Al Jazeera investigation suggested on Wednesday.
The attack took place on Saturday, 28 February, the opening day of the US-Israeli military campaign against Iran. Missiles struck the Shajareh Tayyebeh — or “The Good Tree” — school in the city of Minab in Hormozgan province while students were in class.
The building collapsed on the children and their teachers. Most of the girls killed were aged between seven and 12.
Al Jazeera’s digital investigations unit analysed satellite imagery, video footage and official Iranian records, finding the school had been architecturally and administratively separated from the adjacent Sayyid al-Shuhada military complex since 2016. The investigation debunked claims by Israeli-linked websites and social media accounts that the site was part of an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) base.
Satellite analysis of smoke columns rising from the site showed two separate strikes, one on the military base and one directly on the school. This strongly indicates the school was hit independently, not as collateral damage from the adjacent military site.
“It strongly indicates that the executing party was operating with coordinates and maps that distinguished between the complex’s different facilities,” Al Jazeera reported.
“The chronological review reveals deliberate engineering to separate this part of the military complex and convert it entirely to civilian use over the past 10 years,” Al Jazeera reported.
The school is “part of a broad network of schools” providing education to the children or members of the IRGC Navy.
The school is still a civilian facility under international law and is not used for military operations, Al Jazeera noted. Humanitarian law also stipulates that children and teaching staff must be protected.
The investigation raised two possibilities: either an intelligence failure that relied on outdated databases of the sites, or it was a deliberate attack “based on a linkage that treats the school as part of the military system”.
Pro-Israel accounts on X claimed the school was not directly struck, alleging it was hit by an Iranian air defence missile that fell to the ground. Al Jazeera’s open-source verification team debunked the claim, tracing the most widely shared image to an incident in Zanjan in northwestern Iran, approximately 1,300 kilometres from Minab.
Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio appeared to dodge a question from the press on Monday over the attack on the school.
He said the U.S. “would not deliberately target a school” and it would “be very tragic” if it finds Iran’s claims over the targeting of the facility accurate, adding he did not have the details on “what led to” the attack.
Israel has a pattern of targeting schools and medical facilities with the support of its top ally, the U.S.
Al Jazeera also drew parallels to Israel’s allegations during the Al-Ahli Arab Baptist Hospital massacre in Gaza, committed by Israel in 2023, killing more than 471 people. Israel was quick to pin the blame on a rocket launched by Palestinian resistance that missed its target.
Schools have also been among Israel’s primary targets in the Gaza Strip throughout the genocide, where nearly 90 percent of all school buildings have been damaged or destroyed, according to the United Nations agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA).
