00:26A deadly U.S. strike
00:28on an elementary school in Iran
00:30may have been a war crime.
00:32That is the exclusive finding
00:34from a new United Nations investigation.
00:37And the report is putting fresh scrutiny
00:40on what happened during the opening hours
00:42of the U.S. war with Iran.
00:44According to the U.N. fact-finding mission,
00:47investigators found reasonable grounds
00:49to believe that the United States
00:51carried out indiscriminate attacks
00:53in two separate strikes on February 28th.
00:57One of them hit the Shajireh Tayabeah Elementary School
01:01in the southern Iranian city of Manab.
01:04Iranian officials say at least 156 people were killed,
01:09including 120 children and 26 teachers.
01:14The second strike examined by the U.N.
01:16hit a sports center and residential area
01:19in the city of La Merde.
01:20The U.N. says that attack killed 22 civilians.
01:24And this is where the investigation
01:26becomes particularly significant.
01:29The U.N. says investigators examined
01:32satellite imagery, photographs, videos,
01:35information from credible organizations and experts,
01:39and conducted dozens of interviews.
01:41Their conclusion?
01:42There were reasonable grounds
01:44to believe the United States committed a war crime
01:47of launching indiscriminate attacks
01:49that resulted in civilian deaths and injuries
01:52or damage to civilian objects.
01:55But there is another critical part of this story.
01:58The U.S. has not released its own full investigation
02:01into the Manab strike.
02:03The Pentagon says an investigation is ongoing
02:06and that there is nothing to announce at this time.
02:09The Trump administration has also rejected
02:11the U.N. report as not credible.
02:14Meanwhile, earlier reporting
02:16on the U.S. military investigation
02:18has pointed to a possible explanation
02:21for how the school was hit.
02:23U.S. Central Command reportedly used
02:25outdated intelligence when creating target coordinates
02:29for a nearby Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps facility.
02:33Satellite imagery showed that the school
02:35and the military site had once been part
02:37of the same compound, but later imagery showed a fence
02:41separating the school from the military facility,
02:44along with a separate entrance to the school.
02:46And imagery from December 2025
02:50reportedly showed dozens of people
02:52in the school's courtyard.
02:53The U.N. investigators said
02:55there was no information indicating
02:57that the school was being used
02:59for military purposes at the time of the strike.
03:02They concluded that the U.S. had failed
03:04in its obligation to do everything feasible
03:07to verify that the target
03:09was actually a military objective.
03:11That raises a major question.
03:14Was this a deliberate attack on a civilian site
03:17or a catastrophic targeting failure
03:19caused by outdated intelligence?
03:21The U.N. report does not simply settle that question.
03:25Instead, it lays out evidence
03:27and says there are reasonable grounds
03:29to believe a war crime occurred.
03:31And the controversy does not end there.
03:34The same U.N. investigation also examined Iran's crackdown
03:38on anti-government protests
03:40in late 2025 and early 2026.
03:44Investigators said thousands were killed
03:47and documented allegations of torture
03:49and enforced disappearances.
03:51They described those alleged violations
03:54as crimes against humanity.
03:56So this report places both sides
03:58of the conflict under scrutiny,
04:00U.S. military conduct during the war
04:03and Iran's treatment of its own population
04:06before the war.
04:07The U.N. says Iran provided responses
04:10to about a quarter of information requests,
04:13while requests to U.S. officials
04:15and the Israeli government went unanswered.
04:17The findings will now be submitted
04:19to the U.N. Human Rights Council.
04:21For the families of those killed in Manab, however,
04:24the central issue is far more immediate.
04:27Why was a school hit?
04:29And whether the investigation that follows
04:31will establish exactly how that happened
04:33and who should ultimately be held responsible.
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