Iran says 148 killed in strike on Minab girls’ school; U.S. investigates, IDF denies knowledge

Iranian state media and local officials say a strike on the Shajareh Tayyebeh girls’ elementary school in Minab, Hormozgan province, killed as many as 148 people and wounded scores more, with footage showing the building reduced to rubble and crowds trying to rescue buried victims. Al Jazeera, citing state media and the Iranian Red Crescent, reported the Minab toll as 148 dead and 95 wounded and said the Red Crescent put the broader dead toll from joint U.S.-Israeli strikes across 24 provinces at 201.

The reported strike struck at about 10:45 a.m. IRST, according to accounts compiled in reporting on the incident. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi posted a photograph on X that he said showed the aftermath and wrote that the school had been "bombed in broad daylight, when packed with young pupils." The Washington Post, cited in multiple reports, said it had "verified footage of the destroyed school" but that "there was no independent confirmation of that report" on casualty numbers.

Official tallies from Iran were inconsistent as local and semiofficial outlets issued multiple, differing counts. Tasnim, citing the Minab governor, initially said 57 students were dead and 60 injured and later produced an updated figure of 64 dead and 92 injured. Mehr News Agency reported that 63 students were killed and 60 injured and said 170 pupils had been at the school. A local prosecutor, cited by CNN, also supplied the figure of 148 dead. The U.S.-based monitoring group HRANA reported at least 133 civilian deaths nationwide in its own tally. All of the figures remained in flux and varied by source.

Iran has blamed the United States and Israel for the strike. The U.S. government, according to statements released after initial reports, said "The US is looking into reports of the incident." The Israel Defense Forces said it was "not aware" of operations in the area. Open-source and independent verification of who carried out the attack was not available in the early hours after the incident; open reporting compiled in Wikipedia notes the perpetrators as "unknown."

The strike came on the first day of broader Israeli and U.S. military operations against targets in Iran, a campaign that state outlets say affected provinces across the country. The alleged attack on a site identified as an elementary school, if confirmed, would raise acute humanitarian and legal concerns because the victims are reported principally to be young children. Humanitarian agencies and legal experts typically treat attacks on schools with children as subject to strict protections under international humanitarian law.

Beyond the immediate humanitarian toll, the strikes have already disrupted regional transport and commerce. CNN reported that airlines including Lufthansa, Air France, British Airways, Air India and Turkish Airlines suspended flights to the region and that Dubai airports briefly halted operations after reported strikes forced evacuations and chaotic scenes at terminals.

Officials from Minab hospitals, the Iranian Red Crescent and the Minab governor's office were listed as key sources for verification by reporters on the ground. U.S. and Israeli military spokespeople said they were reviewing the incident. Independent confirmation of casualty lists, hospital admissions and forensic records will be critical to reconciling the widely differing tallies issued so far.