• UN investigators say strikes constituted an indiscriminate attack on non-combatants and civilian infrastructure
• Iran’s Deputy FM Gharibabadi calls assaults in Minab and Lamerd ‘clear war crimes, not an operational error’
WASHINGTON: The White House has rejected a UN human rights report finding “reasonable grounds” to believe the United States committed war crimes in two strikes in Iran on February 28, including on a school in the southern city of Minab, Al Jazeera reports.
Spokeswoman Anna Kelly said the UN’s Human Rights Council has “accomplished nothing for human rights while spouting unserious nonsense for decades,” according to remarks carried by The Washington Post.
Kelly added, “The only party in this conflict that has committed war crimes is the Iranian regime.” The Trump administration has yet to acknowledge any responsibility for the attack on the school or release a Pentagon investigation into the incident.
Human rights report
Earlier on Thursday, a UN fact-finding mission on Iran said it had reasonable grounds to believe the United States was behind two military strikes on a school and sports facility in Iran in February, and that these constituted war crimes.
The UN experts said they found grounds to believe US forces attacked on the Shajareh Tayyebeh Primary School in the city of Minab, where more than 160 people were killed, including around 120 schoolchildren, according to Iranian officials.
The attack constituted an indiscriminate attack causing civilian deaths and damage to civilian infrastructure, amounting to a war crime under international law, the mission concluded.
US officials have previously said military operations are conducted in accordance with the law of armed conflict.
UN Fact-Finding missions are investigative, not judicial bodies, and therefore do not initiate any criminal cases. Their findings, however, can be used in criminal investigations by national courts or international tribunals such as the International Criminal Court. States will discuss the findings of the report when it is presented to the Human Rights Council in Geneva on Monday.
‘Clear crimes’
Separately, Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi says US-Israeli attacks in Minab and Lamerd were “clear war crimes, not an operational error”.
In a post on X, Gharibabadi said, “History will not forget; in Minab, a school was painted with the blood of 168 children, and in Lamerd, the sports ground turned into a slaughterhouse for civilians”.
Now everyone confirms that what happened in Minab and Lamerd was a clear war crime, not an operational error, he said, adding that the US cannot escape accountability by withdrawing from the Human Rights Council.
Iran said that US-Israeli attacks “amount to genocide,” accusing both countries of carrying out systematic strikes on civilian infrastructure, according to Turkiye’s state-run Anadolu Agency.
In a statement posted on X, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baqaei said the attacks are part of a broader pattern of unlawful warfare against Iran.
“This is not an isolated act of cruelty – it is part of a systematic and brutal pattern of illegal warfare against Iran,” he said.
He added that hundreds of schools and educational centers have been deliberately targeted, citing examples of the Shajareh Tayyebeh School in Minab and the Lamerd Sports Hall.
“The term ‘war crime’ falls far short of adequately describing these atrocities,” Baqaei said.
“Given the explicit rhetoric of hostility toward Iranians (as a nation) expressed by US and Israeli officials, these crimes amount to genocide,” he added.
Published in Dawn, September 19th, 2026
