A United Nations fact-finding mission has concluded in a new report that two deadly US attacks on Iran at the start of the war, including one on an elementary school, may have been war crimes.
The independent panel’s report also found that Iran may have committed crimes against humanity in its crackdown on protesters.
The findings of the United Nations Independent International Fact-Finding Mission will be submitted to the United Nations Human Rights Council and may be used in international tribunals such as the International Criminal Court.
At least 156 people, including 120 children and 26 teachers, were killed in an attack on a school in the southern city of Minab on February 28, Iranian officials said. Although the reported death toll varies slightly, it is considered one of the worst civilian casualties in recent U.S. military history.
Investigators also investigated a second U.S. airstrike that day, which hit a sports center and residential area in the southern city of Lamade. According to the United Nations, 22 civilians were killed in the airstrike.
In both attacks, the report said, investigators “found reasonable grounds to believe that the United States committed a war crime by launching an indiscriminate attack that resulted in loss of life or injury to civilians or damage to civilian property.”
“The only party to commit war crimes in this conflict is the Iranian regime, which has killed thousands of its own citizens, killed Americans abroad, carried out acts of terrorism in the Strait of Hormuz, and launched indiscriminate attacks against its neighbors in the region,” White House Press Secretary Anna Kelly said in a statement.
“The president has had the courage to ensure that such evil countries will never acquire nuclear weapons, and the whole world will be safer and more stable.”
A State Department official told CNN that the Trump administration “has not given credibility to the findings of this report.” They noted that President Donald Trump denounced anti-Semitism and formally withdrew the United States from the United Nations Human Rights Council in February 2025, just weeks after taking office.
The Pentagon declined to comment other than to say the investigation is ongoing and it cannot release anything at this time.
The US has not yet released its own investigation. But early evidence suggests the military mistakenly attacked the school due to outdated information when it attacked a nearby Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps naval base, officials said.
The report was compiled by a team of independent investigators who analyzed satellite images, videos, photographs, information from trusted organizations and experts, and conducted dozens of interviews in Iran and abroad.
The UN fact-finding mission’s report also analyzed Iran’s crackdown on anti-government protesters in late 2025 and early 2026, before the war with the US began. The brutal crackdown left thousands dead, with detainees tortured and known to have “disappeared” without informing their families.
These “grave violations amount to crimes against humanity,” investigators said, describing the crackdown as a “widespread and systematic attack against civilians.” CNN has contacted Iran’s Foreign Ministry for comment.
Investigators sought unrestricted access to Iran, but the Iranian government refused. According to the report, Iran responded to only about a quarter of UN requests for information.
They also requested meetings with U.S. government officials and information from the Israeli government, but received no response.
Although the United States is not a member of the International Criminal Court, the global body that investigates war crimes, it has its own war crimes laws.
U.S. Central Command used outdated information provided by the Defense Intelligence Agency to create target coordinates for the attack on Shajare Taiba School in Minab, which contributed to the error, two people briefed on the preliminary findings of an ongoing internal investigation told CNN in March.
Satellite images from 2013 showed that the school and Revolutionary Guards base were once part of the same site. However, images from 2016 revealed that a fence had been erected to separate the school from the rest of the base, and a separate entrance to the school had been constructed.
Images from December 2025 showed dozens of people playing in the school’s courtyard.
“There is no information indicating that the school was used for military purposes at that time,” the report said. “The United States failed in its obligation to do everything possible to verify that it was for military purposes.”
When asked why no one in his administration seemed to publicly support that claim, Trump initially said Iran might be responsible for the attack, he said, “Because I don’t know enough about that.”
But the Pentagon’s internal investigation has been stalled for months.
The first two stages of the standard investigation, completed within a week of the attack, answered basic questions about whether the attack reached its intended target and determined that the United States was responsible. But the third phase, in which Defense Intelligence Agency analysts will examine satellite images and other sources, has not yet been ordered by the Pentagon, three people familiar with the matter told CNN in July.
That review typically provides a more comprehensive judgment of what happened and how the strike affected the broader mission, and is almost always conducted immediately after a notable strike, they said.
A separate independent investigation was launched, which included interviews with military personnel involved in the attack. However, all information gleaned from these interviews is “locked down” by U.S. Central Command, with only some officers allowed access to the details, the sources said.
CNN previously reported that senior U.S. military commanders bypassed warnings from a key database that information about potential Iranian targets was severely outdated and pushed through with authorization for attacks, including one on a school.
This story has been updated with additional information.
