UN mission finds grounds for US war crimes in two February Iran strikes

United Nations investigators said on Thursday they have reasonable grounds to conclude that two United States air strikes in Iran on 28 February were indiscriminate and amount to war crimes. The 18-page report by the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Iran will be presented to the Human Rights Council in Geneva on Monday.

The first strike hit Shajareh Tayyebeh Primary School in Minab, in the south of the country. The mission cites figures of at least 157 dead at the school, including about 123 children under 13. Iranian officials have put the school death toll above 150, with around 120 of them schoolchildren. The investigators said they found no evidence the building was in military use.

The second strike the same day hit a sports centre and nearby housing in Lamerd. Iranian sources reported 22 civilians killed, including five children. A group the mission called credible put injuries near 170. The report says the munitions dispersed tungsten pellets.

What the mission says the United States did wrong

The school stood next to an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps naval site. The mission says that fact does not make the school a lawful target. Photographs and video from before the strike show murals, school signs and a playground. The investigators say those features made the civilian character of the building obvious.

They write that the United States failed to update targeting databases and failed to confirm that the building was a military objective. That failure, they say, went beyond negligence. The report states that US forces directed the strike at the school building while aware of a substantial risk of hitting a civilian object and acted recklessly as to that risk.

On the Lamerd sports centre the mission reaches a similar conclusion: a clearly identifiable civilian site, an indiscriminate attack, civilian dead and injured, damage to nearby homes and another school.

Adm. Brad Cooper of US Central Command told the House Armed Services Committee in May that the Minab attack "correlated" with a US strike. In June President Donald Trump said nobody did it on purpose and that mistakes are made. The White House and Pentagon did not immediately answer questions about the Thursday report. The mission says it sought information and a meeting with US officials and received no reply.

The other half of the report

The same document finds that Iranian authorities committed crimes against humanity during the crackdown on protests that began in late December 2025. The investigators list murder, torture, persecution, arbitrary detention and enforced disappearance. They say the protest death toll is likely higher than official figures.

That finding sits beside the war-crimes conclusions on the two US strikes. States will debate both when the report is taken up in Geneva on Monday. The mission has no power to prosecute. Its mandate is to establish facts for the Human Rights Council.

What follows

The war that began in February is in its seventh month. Trump said this week he hoped an end was near and that he had heard from Iran directly. The report does not address those talks. It addresses two days of targeting in the opening phase and a months-long internal crackdown.

The school finding is the heavier of the two strike conclusions because of the child death toll and because Washington has not issued a completed public investigation that accepts or rejects responsibility in detail. The mission opened its inquiry in March after US military investigators said American forces were likely responsible, while the Pentagon had not issued a final determination.

Monday's session will show which governments want a further inquiry, which want the language softened, and which want the Iranian chapters to crowd out the US chapters. The numbers in the report are already public: more than 150 dead at a primary school, 22 dead at a sports site, and a separate finding that Tehran's own security forces crossed the line into crimes against humanity against protesters.