TWO-and-a-half years of relentless slaughtering of Palestinian children, with complete impunity and in the most gruesome ways imaginable, seems to have desensitised the global citizenry to the horror of burying a child. As more evil is now unleashed on the wider Middle East, the perpetrators seem to be signalling to others, too, that they should expect similar treatment. Last Saturday, as the US and Israel started another unlawful war, as part of another regime change operation, they targeted an elementary school in the Iranian city of Minab, in the southern province of Hormozgan. An air strike on the Shajereh Tayyabeh school killed at least 165 and injured 100 others, including children, teachers and school staff. On Tuesday, three days after the massacre, parents and other mourners from the community laid scores of children, wrapped in white shrouds, to eternal rest in a mass grave that had to be dug by industrial excavators.

The targeting of the girls’ school, located close to a military facility, is widely seen as intentional. An Al Jazeera investigation has found that in the school’s bombing there are strong indications “the executing party was operating with coordinates and maps”. The UN human rights office has called for “a prompt, impartial and thorough investigation into the circumstances of the attack”, placing the onus on the perpetrators. Separately, the UN agency for education has pointed out that bombing a school constitutes a grave violation of humanitarian law. The US and Israel are likely confident that these charges will be brushed off, just as their other violations of international and humanitarian law have been brushed under the carpet in this conflict. It is up to the world to ensure that war crimes are prosecuted thoroughly. The Shajereh Tayyabeh school bombing remains the single largest mass casualty event of this war so far. The perpetrators of this barbaric act must face justice.

Published in Dawn, March 5th, 2026