Introduction
The protection of civilians, particularly children and educational facilities, constitutes one of the fundamental principles of international humanitarian law in armed conflicts. Despite the development of legal norms and advances in military technology, contemporary wars continue to be accompanied by incidents that raise serious questions regarding the effectiveness of civilian protection mechanisms, the accuracy of targeting processes, and the accountability of the actors involved. In recent years, the increasing reliance of military forces on intelligence systems, big data analysis, and artificial intelligence-based technologies has enhanced operational capabilities while simultaneously generating new concerns regarding the possibility of errors, the quality of the data used, the extent of human oversight over military decisions, and the impact of these technologies on compliance with the fundamental principles of international humanitarian law.
Within this context, the attack on Minab School during the first day of military attacks by the United States and Israel against Iran (2026), has become one of the most significant cases for examination from legal, humanitarian, and technological perspectives. Beyond its extensive human consequences, this incident provides an opportunity to assess the performance of targeting mechanisms, the manner in which the principles of distinction, proportionality, and precautions were observed, as well as the role of emerging technologies in military decision-making processes. Accordingly, this report seeks to analytically examine the various dimensions of this incident in light of international humanitarian law, the challenges arising from the use of new technologies in warfare, and the requirements of accountability concerning attacks against civilians.
Overview of the Incident
On the first day of the military attacks by the United States and Israel against Iran, dated 28 February 2026, the girls’ school “Shajareh Tayyebeh” and the boys’ school “Rahpouyan-e Shohada-ye Khalij-e Fars”, located in Minab County, Hormozgan Province, were struck by a cruise missile. The attack occurred at approximately 10:45 a.m., at a time when students were attending classes. According to official statistics provided by local authorities, the incident resulted in the deaths of 168 people, including 120 students, 26 teachers, seven parents who had arrived at the school to pick up their children, one school bus driver, and one pharmacy technician from the nearby clinic.
The site of the incident was located adjacent to a Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Navy base. However, visual evidence and independent analyses indicate that the school was distinguishable from the nearby military facility and possessed an independent entrance as well as clear indicators of civilian use, including children’s drawings on walls, crayons, apples, and a playground.
Preliminary investigations and a report by The New York Times indicate that the attack was carried out using a Tomahawk cruise missile, and likely occurred due to the use of outdated intelligence data that still identified the school as part of the adjacent military complex. Nevertheless, some analysts have questioned this explanation given the high precision-guidance capabilities of Tomahawk missiles.
Shiva Amelirad, a representative of the Coordination Council of Iranian Teachers’ Trade Associations, a network of teachers’ unions in Iran based in Canada, told The Guardian that the school’s classrooms were not exclusively designated for children of military families. The school also enrolled many children from the local community, particularly those who could not afford private school tuition.
Following the incident, the city of Minab entered a period of mourning, with families facing heartbreaking scenes while identifying their loved ones through clothing, dental features, or fingerprints. Some bodies were never identified, and only a crumpled blue shirt and a shoe remained as reminders of children such as Makan Nasiri, a first-grade student.
Collective Grief and Public Mourning
The Minab School incident has developed into a profound tragedy among Iranian and global public opinion and has even prompted reactions from American circles. In this regard, the experiences of the bereaved parents reflect dimensions of a profound collective grief. Reports by international media outlets, including The Guardian, have effectively highlighted this aspect. During the initial days following the burial of their loved ones, families would visit the graves of the victims almost every night, despite the observance of Ramadan and the relatively cold weather conditions.
In an exclusive report, The Guardian reflected the accounts of students’ parents during the beginning of the war, approximately two hours before the Minab incident. According to these accounts, parents were anxiously following developments and official announcements when they received a call from the school informing them of an evacuation order. The school had been designated as a gathering location, similar to other sites of concentration that were expected to be rapidly evacuated during wartime conditions. With deep anxiety, parents rushed toward the school, and some of them, upon arrival, were confronted with the devastating scene of a bombed school.
One of them was Mostafa Salari, the elder brother of Mandana Salari, one of the students who lost her life in the attack. When he arrived at the scene approximately 20 minutes after the incident, he saw parents crying continuously and searching through the rubble with their bare hands. On the ground, he saw fragments of children’s bodies. Two and a half months later, in an interview, he recalled:
“There was a small hand there. I saw a round face next to a stone, but I did not have the courage to pick it up. It was horrifying. I felt dizzy.”
Similarly, Fazel Alinejad, a resident of Minab, told PBS that:
“The only thing I did was dig through the soil like a madman. My hands and fingernails were bleeding. The only thing I did was keep digging.”
The Spanish-based newspaper El País described the situation in Minab in May as follows:
“Last week, the Thursday market was crowded, but the trauma is palpable on every street. Minab remains filled with banners commemorating this massacre. Ceremonies and events are being held throughout the city to keep alive the memory of the school victims.”
In addition, the collective mourning caused by this incident has generated widespread reactions both within Iran and internationally, reflecting expressions of solidarity with the survivors as well as outrage over the targeting of children in a battlefield context.
Intelligence Failure
One of the central issues in analysing the attack on Minab School concerns the targeting process and the quality and age of the intelligence data used by the Pentagon, as the United States had previously experienced similar incidents involving the use of outdated intelligence.
For instance, during the NATO bombing campaign against Yugoslavia, the United States mistakenly bombed part of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade based on outdated information, resulting in three deaths and 20 injuries. Likewise, during the bombing of Baghdad in 1991, the United States government targeted the Al-Amiriyah shelter based on intelligence indicating that it was a military target. However, following the bombing, several journalists visited the site and determined that the location was entirely civilian in nature, resulting in the deaths of 408 civilians.
Regarding the Minab incident, preliminary reports, including those published by The New York Times and The Associated Press, indicate that the attack was likely conducted based on outdated and unupdated intelligence data that continued to classify the school building as part of the adjacent military complex. This occurred despite visual evidence and independent analyses demonstrating that the school had an independent entrance, a separating wall from the military section, and clear indicators of educational use, including murals and a playground.
Amanda Klasing, one of the directors of Amnesty International USA, stated in this regard:
“There is no doubt that the United States should have known that this building was a school, not a military target. After the attack, Amnesty International, as well as media organizations and other groups, immediately confirmed that the building was a school and had been so for years. The Pentagon, with its far more advanced intelligence-gathering capabilities and technologies, should undoubtedly have collected and verified the same information, which should have resulted in a decision not to strike the school.”
Furthermore, The New York Times reported in late June 2026 that at least one analyst had warned a colleague several years earlier that the United States appeared to be targeting a building that had since become a school in Minab. However, the targeting data was not updated, and military officials continued to classify the location as a legitimate target for bombing.
According to The Times, targeting personnel relied on imagery that had not been updated for seven years. This issue, namely the outdated nature of the data, was also confirmed by Mark Cancian, a retired United States Marine Corps Colonel and senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a Washington-based think tank, in an interview with Al Jazeera.
The verification and fact-checking team of BBC Verify also concluded that walls decorated with children’s murals and Persian alphabet letters separated the schoolyard from the IRGC base.
Based on the information presented thus far, Minab School was clearly a civilian educational facility that was largely distinguishable from the adjacent military base. Therefore, under the rules of international humanitarian law and the principle of precautions in attack, states and armed forces are required to accurately and comprehensively verify all available information before undertaking any military action.
Reliance on outdated data and failure to reassess the nature of a target may constitute a violation of this principle.
In this regard, Akshaya Kumar, one of the directors of Human Rights Watch, argues:
“The requirement to update satellite imagery at regular intervals is a step that any reasonable commander would take as a practical precautionary measure to prevent forces from acting blindly in situations where there is insufficient time to collect and analyse information.”
However, according to The Japan Times, the expansion of artificial intelligence-based targeting tools makes this issue even more dangerous.
Algorithms and Artificial Intelligence
The role of artificial intelligence in the battlefield is highly emerging. Its reliability in high-risk scenarios has not yet been sufficiently studied. It appears that artificial intelligence may make decisions to strike civilians faster than the “speed of thought.” In modern warfare, the use of artificial intelligence-based systems in the processes of intelligence collection, data analysis, and even target selection is increasing.
These technologies, through processing massive volumes of data, can contribute to faster identification of targets; however, they simultaneously pose serious risks to civilians. The United States Central Command (CENTCOM) employs an artificial intelligence-based targeting platform known as the Maven Smart System, which was developed by Palantir Technologies under a $1.3 billion contract with the Pentagon.
In 2021, an experimental artificial intelligence targeting system of the United States Air Force, despite assessing its own confidence level at 90 percent, achieved only approximately 25 percent accuracy under real-world conditions. In this context, Major General Daniel L. Simpson, Deputy Assistant Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force for Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR), told Defense One:
“This AI was confidently wrong, and it is not the algorithm’s fault. It is because we gave it the wrong training data.”
Similarly, Jack Shanahan, a retired United States Air Force General who established the Project Maven initiative, expressed his concern during a lecture at Stanford University regarding whether the final decision would ultimately be made by a human operator or by artificial intelligence.
Regarding the Minab School attack, questions have been raised concerning the possible role of algorithms in target identification; particularly how a school with clear civilian indicators could have been identified as a military target within a precision targeting process.
Although conclusive evidence proving the direct use of artificial intelligence in targeting Minab School has not yet been established, multiple reports have pointed to the possible role of intelligent systems in this incident.
The Maven Smart System, developed by Palantir Technologies in cooperation with Claude, an artificial intelligence model developed by Anthropic, was reportedly used in the United States military operations in Iran and generated more than one thousand targets during the first 24 hours of the war.
On the other hand, N. R. Jenzen-Jones, a munitions specialist and director of the Armament Research Services (ARES), told CNN that the school buildings were struck by precision-guided aerial munitions rather than by misdirected air-defence missiles.
Nevertheless, Dario Amodei, Chief Executive Officer of Anthropic, acknowledged in an interview with Bloomberg that he did not know whether or how their artificial intelligence software might have been used in selecting targets for United States attacks in Iran. However, he quickly attributed responsibility for the Minab incident to the military, particularly to an unidentified “human” actor responsible for making the final targeting decisions.
A former senior United States defence official, who requested anonymity, told a Russian news agency:
“The bombing of the girls’ school appears to me as though the building had been on the target list for years. Nevertheless, this issue was overlooked, and the question is: how? A machine? A human? I would like to believe that artificial intelligence, in theory, could identify such flaws. Unfortunately, warfare is never as perfect and untouched as the technology designed for it.”
Protection of Civilians in War
International humanitarian law, particularly the rules contained in the Geneva Conventions and their Additional Protocols, places strong emphasis on the protection of civilians and civilian objects during armed conflicts.
The fundamental principles of distinction, proportionality, and precautions require parties to an armed conflict to distinguish between military objectives and civilian objects and to direct their attacks exclusively against legitimate military targets.
Schools, students, and educational personnel, under normal circumstances, constitute clear examples of civilian persons and objects and enjoy full protection as long as they are not used for military purposes.
In this regard, relevant experts of the United Nations confirmed this principle while explicitly linking it to the Minab School incident and the deaths of students, stating:
“The reported destruction of a school and the killing of girls in a classroom are among the clearest examples of how conflict can erase girls’ futures in a single moment, destroying not only young lives but also the hopes, agency, and opportunities that education makes possible.”
Beyond the foundations and principles of the law of war or international humanitarian law, members of the United States military are also guided by the Department of Defense Law of War Manual, which, according to the United States Department of Defense, provides:
“authoritative legal guidance for Department of Defense personnel in the implementation of the law of war and the conduct of military operations.”
In its 2023 update, the manual was revised to strengthen its approach in this area. It now describes a legal obligation:
“to presume that persons or objects are protected from targeting unless available information indicates that they are military objectives.”
The Law of War Manual further confirms that:
“An object dedicated to civilian purposes (such as a place of worship, a home or other dwelling, or a civilian school) is a civilian object and may not be made the object of attack unless available information, assessed in good faith, indicates that under the circumstances it constitutes a military objective.”
However, the fundamental challenge in this case lies in the absence of an effective and enforceable mechanism for holding violators of these rules accountable.
International organizations such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and United Nations experts have assessed the attack as a serious violation of international humanitarian law and have emphasized the necessity of independent investigation and accountability.
The United Nations experts stated:
“The attack on an operational school during class hours raises the gravest concerns under international law and must be investigated urgently, independently, and effectively, with those responsible for any violations held accountable. Civilians must never be treated as collateral damage.”
Nevertheless, despite such positions and statements, holding those responsible for this incident accountable appears to remain highly difficult.
Conclusion
The Minab School incident, from both legal and humanitarian perspectives, represents an important case for examining the challenges surrounding the protection of civilians in contemporary warfare. The significance of this event is not limited solely to its devastating human consequences; rather, it lies in the questions it raises regarding the accuracy of targeting processes, the quality of intelligence data, the extent of compliance with the principles of distinction, proportionality, and precautions, as well as the possible role of emerging technologies in military decision-making.
The reports and analyses published concerning this incident indicate that, when military forces rely on outdated, incomplete, or insufficiently updated data, even the most advanced targeting systems may produce outcomes that are inconsistent with the requirements of international humanitarian law.
On the other hand, this incident once again highlights the necessity of transparency, effective oversight, and accountability in the use of emerging military technologies. If artificial intelligence-based systems or algorithmic analysis played a role in the process of identifying targets, legal and operational responsibility cannot be separated from human actors and decision-making institutions.
Therefore, the Minab School incident should not be viewed merely as a tragic event, but rather as a serious warning regarding the need to reassess targeting mechanisms, ensure continuous evaluation of intelligence data, strengthen human oversight, and guarantee effective accountability in armed conflicts.
