As he celebrated a ceasefire deal to open the strait of Hormuz<\/a> last week, Trump signalled he was ready to write off the attack as a mistake. \u201cIt\u2019s such a strange question to be asked at this date, because you\u2019re talking about a long time ago,\u201d Trump said when he was asked about the investigation during a press conference at the G7 meeting in \u00c9vian-les-Bains, France. \u201cBut nobody did that on purpose.\u201d<\/p>\n It was at the beginning of what Trump has taken to calling a \u201clittle excursion\u201d into Iran that the back-to-back or \u201cdouble tap\u201d strikes on the school building<\/a> took place, killing mainly children under the age of 12. Officials have told media anonymously that the site was believed to be an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) base.<\/p>\n Mohammadreza Ahmadi Tifakani lost two children in the school bombing. His seven-year-old daughter, Hanieh, was killed, along with all of her classmates in the girl\u2019s section of the school, when the first missile hit. According to witnesses, her 10-year-old brother, Sobhan, survived the initial explosion and ran back to look for his sister. He was killed in the second blast.<\/p>\n \u201cI personally went to the morgue and identified both of them,\u201d Tifakani told the Guardian in an interview shortly after the attack. \u201cSobhan was missing an eye, and half of his face was gone. His legs were broken. Hanieh\u2019s skull was fractured but her face was intact. I recognised Sobhan at first glance, even though he was severely injured.\u201d<\/p>\n Trump said last week: \u201cMistakes are made. The war is nasty.\u201d<\/p>\n Several former Pentagon and national security officials expressed doubt to the Guardian that the US government would take responsibility for the deaths of the schoolchildren in Minab or even release the full report into the attack.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s very rare that you would have a military operation and not have some incidents where there was a mistaken target and civilians are harmed or killed, but then there is a system for investigating, assessing accountability and taking responsibility\u201d in those cases, said one former senior Pentagon official.<\/p>\n \u201cEven without the civilian harm mitigation office, there\u2019s a very clear process for this, and I\u2019m very doubtful that the Hegseth Pentagon will follow through,\u201d the former official added.<\/p>\n As part of Hegseth\u2019s \u201canti-woke\u201d crusade at the Pentagon, the military has shuttered or reduced units meant to review civilian casualty incidents and has more broadly indicated that decisions made in combat by \u201cwarfighters\u201d would not be subject to such close scrutiny. The reduction in civilian oversight at the Pentagon under Hegseth may make it easier to skirt blame for the incident.<\/p>\n The incident is comparable to some of the worst mass-casualty incidents of past US wars, including the 2017 Mosul airstrike<\/a> that killed at least 105 and perhaps more than 200 civilians, the 2015 Kunduz hospital airstrike<\/a> that killed 42 people, and the 1991 Amiriyah air raid shelter bombing<\/a> that killed more than 400 Iraqi civilians who were sheltering during Desert Storm.<\/p>\n Map<\/a><\/p>\n Trump said last week that the investigation was continuing. US Central Command, when asked about the investigation, gave no new information. \u201cWe have no updates at this time,\u201d a defence official wrote.<\/p>\n But media reports indicate that the investigation has concluded. Preliminary results said the attack came because of the US using seven-year-old targeting data that failed to indicate that the building next to an IRGC base was in fact a girls\u2019 school. The New York Times reported<\/a> last week that at least one analyst had alerted a colleague several years ago that the US appeared to be targeting what was now a school in Minab. But the targeting data was not updated, and military officials continued to revalidate the site as a legitimate target for bombing.<\/p>\n Tifakani said at the time he had little hope of accountability from US investigations or the world. Asked what message he had for legal institutions or investigators looking into the bombing, he said: \u201cThey are witnessing everything themselves. We saw what happened in Gaza and Palestine. Now the same tragedy has befallen our own children. No matter what we say to them, that will not change anything.\u201d<\/p>\n Congressional inquiries into the incident have also been stymied. \u201cThe US strike in Minab is one of the most horrific episodes of the entire illegal Trump war in Iran,\u201d said Yassamin Ansari, an Iranian-American congresswoman who represents Arizona\u2019s third district. She said she had written to the Trump administration<\/a> to demand answers about the strike and \u201cgotten little to no response\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cDonald Trump is hiding the truth from the American people and Congress, and deflecting blame to Secretary Hegseth, because he does not want the public to know the true horrors of what he unleashed on the Iranian people with absolutely nothing to show for it,\u201d Ansari said. \u201cI will continue to do everything in my power to get answers for the families of these girls.\u201d<\/p>\n Wes Bryant, a former US air force special operations targeting expert and former chief of civilian harm assessments at the Pentagon, said his few remaining colleagues overseeing civilian harm reduction at the Pentagon had been prevented from seeing the preliminary results of the investigation.<\/p>\n \u201cI believe Hegseth and Trump are both going to do everything they can to suppress this investigation,\u201d he said. \u201cSo, even if there is one really sitting there, it\u2019s not getting out any more, unless we have, you know, a brave whistleblower.\u201d He added: \u201cThe amount of people with eyes on that report are going to be very small.\u201d<\/p>\n He said strikes in Iran that had killed thousands of civilians were a sign of the rising \u201caggregate harm\u201d that the US was willing to accept as part of a culture of that pointed to \u201cpure negligence and recklessness, but also to a degradation of culture at senior leadership levels in the military\u201d.<\/p>\n![\"Debris](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Debris_lies_spread_across_girls__school_in_Iran_in_aftermath_of_deadly_strike--20c2db87-f239-4e3d-89.jpeg\")
Debris lies spread across girls\u2019 school in Iran in aftermath of deadly strike<\/p>\n![\"Footage](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Footage_released_by_Iran_foreign_press_office_shows_the_destruction_inside_Shajareh_Tayyebeh_girls__.jpeg\")
Footage released by Iran foreign press office shows destruction inside girls\u2019 school<\/p>\n![\"Footage](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Footage_from_Minab__Iran__shows_the_aftermath_of_a_US-Israeli_strike_on_a_girls__school___video--dec.jpeg\")
Footage from Minab, Iran, shows the aftermath of a US-Israeli strike on a girls\u2019 school \u2013 video<\/p>\n