The U.S. may have committed war crimes when its strikes allegedly hit an elementary school and a sports facility in Iran, according to a United Nations report publicly released on Thursday.
The U.N.’s Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Iran said it found “reasonable grounds to believe that the United States committed a war crime by launching indiscriminate attacks that killed or injured civilians or damaged civilian objects.”
The U.S. and Israel launched strikes on Iran on Feb. 28, triggering a war that has stretched into its seventh month. Among those attacks, the mission identified U.S. Tomahawk missile strikes that hit Tree of Tayyiba Elementary School in Minab, killing more than 150 people, including 120 children, and an alleged U.S. missile strike that dispersed tens of thousands of tungsten pellets over a sports complex and residential area in Lamerd, killing 22 civilians. (The U.S. denied carrying out any strike within the vicinity of Lamerd on Feb. 28.)
Both civilian facilities were “clearly identifiable,” the report said.
“The U.S.’s failure to update information in relation to the school in its targeting databases and to verify that the building was a military objective before launching the attack went beyond mere negligence,” the report said. “Rather, the U.S. directed the strikes at the building of the school while being aware of a substantial risk of striking a civilian object and acting recklessly as regards the possibility that this would happen.”
The mission is expected to present its findings, which also conclude that Iranian authorities likely committed crimes against humanity during their deadly crackdown on protesters in December and January, to the U.N. Human Rights Council on Monday.
“People in Iran are caught between intensified repression and violence by their government and renewed armed conflict and insecurity resulting from the hostilities between Iran and the U.S and Israel,” the report said.
The war has produced a significant civilian toll, with at least 2,100 people killed across the region by late April. In Iran, human rights groups estimate that more than 1,700 civilians were killed by the end of April, including more than 1,000 civilians who were killed in the first five days of the U.S.-Israeli bombing campaign. That includes hundreds of women and children, dozens of health care workers, and at least nine journalists. Iranian authorities reported another 18 deaths from U.S. strikes on Sept. 1, which included several civilians. Israel’s strikes on Lebanon have also killed more than 4,300 people and displaced more than one million since early March, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants.
U.S. conduct in its war against Iran has come under growing scrutiny. On Sept. 1, an apparent U.S. strike hit a wedding celebration in Kuhestak, killing five people and wounding more than 60. Washington has not accepted responsibility, although it launched an internal probe into the strike. An analysis by Reuters indicated that the damage was likely caused by a direct hit from a U.S. munition.
The U.S. also carried out strikes on bridges and electrical infrastructure in Iran in July, after President Donald Trump repeatedly threatened attacks on Iranian bridges and power plants. In March, Trump threatened to “blow up” Iran’s desalination plants if Tehran did not reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a move that legal experts said could violate international law. He also warned in April that a “whole civilization will die tonight” unless Iran acquiesced to U.S. demands. Israel’s bombing of Iranian fuel depots, which shrouded Tehran in plumes of toxic black smoke, also raised warnings of potentially decades-long harm to public health.
The State Department told the Associated Press that it did not consider the latest U.N. report credible. The Trump Administration withdrew from the Human Rights Council, which comprises 47 countries, in February 2025, over its “anti-American rhetoric and antisemitism,” the department said.
White House spokesperson Anna Kelly told news outlets the Human Rights Council has “accomplished nothing for human rights while spouting unserious nonsense for decades.”
“The only party in this conflict that has committed war crimes is the Iranian regime, which has murdered thousands of its own people, killed Americans overseas, executed acts of terrorism in the Strait of Hormuz, and launched indiscriminate attacks against its neighbors in the region,” Kelly said.
What the U.S. has said about the strikes
In March, the Pentagon launched a formal command investigation into the Minab school strike following a preliminary review. It has not released its preliminary findings, although a U.S. official told the Associated Press that the strike was likely the result of outdated target coordinates supplied by the Defense Intelligence Agency. The school was adjacent to an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps complex, but satellite imagery showed the school had been separated from the compound in 2016. It had been publicly listed as a girls’ elementary school for years.
Members of Congress have also questioned whether the Pentagon used artificial intelligence tools to identify the school as a target. No publicly disclosed evidence has established that an AI model independently selected the school as a target.
In June, Trump said the incident was still under investigation. “Nobody did that on purpose,” he told reporters at a press conference in France.
The Pentagon told Reuters on Thursday that the investigation is ongoing.
The U.S. was also accused of carrying out strikes with precision missiles that scattered clouds of tungsten pellets in the city of Lamerd, which the U.N. report also mentioned.
On March 28, BBC Verify reported that weapons experts had identified the type of missile used in Lamerd from video footage as a probable U.S.-made Precision Strike Missile (PrSM). A visual analysis by the New York Times also indicated the same type of missile.
A review by the conflict monitor Airwars last month mapped three apparent missile detonations over a sports complex and two residential neighborhoods in Lamerd. Weapons experts told AP that the missiles appeared to be PrSMs and were unlikely to have been fired by Iran or Israel.
On March 31, U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) refuted claims that the U.S. struck Lamerd and said U.S. forces did not launch strikes in Lamerd or within 30 miles of the city on Feb. 28.
CENTCOM said that the missile visible in video footage was too long to be a PrSM, and suggested it was instead an Iranian Hoveyzeh cruise missile.
“U.S. forces do not target civilians, unlike the Iranian regime which has attacked civilian locations in neighboring countries more than 300 times,” CENTCOM said on March 31. No formal investigation into the alleged strike has been announced since.
In May, CENTCOM commander Adm. Brad Cooper told Congress that the military was investigating only one case involving possible U.S.-caused civilian deaths: the Minab school strike.
Iran may have committed crimes against humanity in deadly crackdown
The mission also found grounds to believe that the Iranian government committed crimes against humanity during their “violent” crackdown on mass protests beginning late December. Iranian security forces killed 3,038 people and injured 25,000, according to official counts, although the report said the toll is likely higher. At least 221 children, including two two-year-olds, were killed in the crackdown, the report said, citing a human rights organization.
The government arbitrarily detained tens of thousands of people, some of whom were subjected to torture, solitary confinement and denial of legal advice, the report said.
Security forces also attacked health care facilities, arresting wounded protesters and health care workers, the report said.
The mission said at least 29 men were executed, five publicly, in connection with the protests following summary trial. More than 70 people, including five women and three children, are at “imminent risk” of execution, the report said.
Iran has not publicly commented on the report.
In January, Iranian protesters urged Trump to make good on his promise that “help is on its way.” Trump said he was considering military action, although he ultimately declined to launch a strike at the time, and called on demonstrators to continue standing up to the theocratic regime.
In recent weeks, amid renewed U.S.-Iran hostilities, Trump has again urged the Iranian public to resist their government, asking “When are the Iranian people going to rise up and fight?”
