The Lingering Aftermath of the Minab School Strike
For months, Masoumeh Zakeri has endlessly replayed the last night she spent with her nine-year-old daughter, Motahreh, before the girl was killed in a strike on her school during the opening hours of the US-Israel war with Iran. Motahreh had excitedly talked about upcoming holidays, planned weddings and the clothes she wanted to buy. She had a Ramadan pre-fast meal shortly before dawn, and then Zakeri tucked her into bed.
“I never saw her again. (That was) the last time,” the 44-year-old mother told AFP.
Motahreh woke before her parents and took the bus to Shajareh Tayebeh school in Iran’s southern city of Minab. Hours later, the attacks on Iran began, and Zakeri received a call telling her to pick up her daughter. She did not make it in time. By the time she arrived, the school had been struck, and Motahreh was among at least 155 people killed, most of them children—the deadliest strike yet reported by Iran. Motahreh was recovered later that day, her mother said, identified only “by her earrings and bracelet.”
Six months on, a team of AFP journalists obtained rare access to the school, which has remained largely in ruins, its collapsed walls and twisted steel now surrounded by portraits of the children killed as Iranian flags flutter above the rubble. Iran says the attack on the school involved two separate US Tomahawk missiles, but neither the United States nor Israel has officially claimed responsibility for the strike. Rights groups including Amnesty International blamed the US, while The New York Times reported that the school was hit by a US Tomahawk cruise missile.
Since an April ceasefire, the intense bombardments have largely come to a halt, but diplomatic efforts to end the war have stalled.
Families Mourn, Search for Answers
Zakeri said she did not see her daughter’s body after it was recovered, fearing its condition would replace her last good memory of her. “She was very loving, cheerful and really energetic,” she said, adding that time has done little to dull her grief. “Now our house is completely quiet.”
Yaghoub Yazdanpanah, 34, a Persian literature teacher, still remembers the frantic phone calls from his wife and relatives that sent him rushing towards the school to collect his six-year-old daughter, Fatemeh. He lost her in the strike. Javad Shahrjou, a painter, lost his seven-year-old son, Alireza, whose body was identified by his underwear, socks and shoes. Javad said he lost his job after his son’s death. Arash Tondro, 45, who lives near the school, lost an eight-year-old relative and noted that the school site had been a military base about 10 or 12 years ago.
Authorities say the school will be preserved as a memorial. Search operations have continued for the bodies of three missing children from the strike. Zakeri visits her daughter’s grave regularly and said she has no plans for the future.
A Newborn’s Short Life
The war’s toll extended far beyond Minab. Mohammad Ali Kialha’s first hours were all he knew of peace. He was born on February 26 in Iran’s capital, Tehran. Two days later, President Donald Trump began his war on that country. “Bombs will be dropping everywhere,” Trump wrote on social media on February 28. That day, the US attacked the Shajarah Tayyebeh elementary school in Minab. In the weeks that followed, tens of thousands more would be killed or wounded in US-Israeli strikes, according to World Health Organization estimates.
Mohammad’s parents—Fatemeh Rostami, known to her family as Hannaneh, and Ali, her husband—brought him home to their apartment in eastern Tehran’s Pirouzi neighborhood. Despite the danger, Hannaneh’s mother, Tahereh Sarbaz, traveled almost 100 miles from the city of Qazvin to meet her newborn grandson, as Trump lobbed threats and missiles at Tehran. “Today Iran will be hit very hard! Under serious consideration for complete destruction and certain death, because of Iran’s bad behavior, are areas and groups of people that were not considered for targeting up until this moment in time,” he wrote on Truth Social on March 7. Sarbaz witnessed the destruction that week and felt a blast wave firsthand while driving through the capital. “I was in Tehran. I saw what happened there,” she recalled. “People were being bombed every night. Families everywhere were losing their children.”
Pirouzi, a crowded working- to middle-class residential area, with a major shopping mall, hospital, sports complex, and several transit hubs, is home to around 600,000 people. When the war erupted, it was hit hard. As US and Israeli munitions laid waste to buildings there, people flooded into the streets—Hannaneh’s family among them—seeking safety.
On March 18, a strike on the family’s apartment building killed Mohammad Ali at 20 days old, along with his mother, his seven-year-old brother Mohammad Hassan, his uncle Mehdi Rostami and his wife Manzar al-Sadat Zarrabadi, and their children Ali (13), Fatemeh (9), and Zeynab (7). A rescue worker estimated that 30 people died in total when the building was demolished.
Mohammad Ali’s funeral was held on March 23 in Qazvin, with thousands attending. The funeral included chants of “Death to America.” Sarbaz, his grandmother, said she wanted people around the world to know that civilians died in this conflict.
Documenting Civilian Harm
The WHO estimated 37,181 casualties in Iran, including 3,375 deaths. Iranian state and semi-official media reported similar figures, just under 3,500 killed. Airwars documented civilian harm incidents, with strikes on residential areas accounting for 147 of 297 incidents. A Washington Post investigation, relying on data from the Institute for the Study of War, counted 285 attacks across Tehran.
Despite the scale of destruction, accountability has been limited. Adm. Brad Cooper, chief of US Central Command, told the Senate Armed Services Committee in May that there was one active civilian casualty investigation from 13,629 munitions. CENTCOM did not provide new updates on investigations into civilian harm in Iran. The US military has taken steps to reduce civilian harm mitigation efforts, as reported by The Intercept, including cuts to the Civilian Protection Center of Excellence and CENTCOM’s civilian harm team. A Pentagon inspector general report described civilian protection efforts as largely “inactive.” In July, Democratic lawmakers wrote to Secretary Hegseth about civilian harm mitigation. Trump, when asked if anyone would be held accountable for the school strike, said “No.”
The Human Cost of War
The stories of Motahreh and Mohammad Ali are two among tens of thousands. As the war grinds on and diplomatic efforts stall, families like Zakeri’s and Sarbaz’s are left to bury their dead and wonder if the world will ever take notice. Sarbaz’s plea echoes beyond the ruins: “I want people around the world to know that civilians died in this conflict.”
For Zakeri, the pain is as fresh as the night she tucked her daughter into bed. “I never saw her again,” she said. “(That was) the last time.”