Examining The Violation Of Rights Of Children Of Minab Elementary School In Southern Iran Under The International Laws - By Dr. YUSHA’U Shaikh U.

ABSTRACT: Today 15th August 2026 is exactly 168 days from the Minab Massacre in which about 168 civilians were deliberately targeted and mer...

ABSTRACT:

Today 15th August 2026 is exactly 168 days from the Minab Massacre in which about 168 civilians were deliberately targeted and mercilessly killed. It was on 28 February 2026, during the opening phase of joint United States and Israeli military operations against Iran, a missile strike destroyed Shajareh Tayyebeh Elementary School in Minab, Hormozgan Province in Islamic Republic of Iran. The attack killed approximately 168 people, including  over 120 children  along with teachers, staff and parents. Survivors suffered severe physical and psychological injuries. This article examines the incident under International Humanitarian Law particularly the principles of distinction, precautions in attack, and proportionality under the Geneva Conventions, Additional Protocol I, and Customary Law. It also look at the matter from  the angle of Convention on the Rights of the Child particularly Articles 6, 28, and 38, and also the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court of which provisions on war crimes particularly attacks against educational buildings and civilians are provided. Further, this article analysed the civilian status of the school, the feasibility of precautions, proportionality concerns arising from striking a functioning elementary school during school hours, potential individual criminal responsibility, and the independent obligations of the defending party regarding co-location of military objectives near civilian sites. It was concluded that the attacks of Minab Elementary school in I.R. Iran constitute a serious war crimes and grave violations of children’s rights. It was therefore recommended free fair and transparent investigation, publication of findings, independent scrutiny, reparations and strong implementation of protections for education in armed conflict. Children are entitled to absolute priority in protection. the Minab tragedy tests the practical force of this principle.

1.1 Introduction

On the morning of 28 February 2026, as the opening hours of joint United States and Israeli military operations against Iran unfolded, a missile strike struck Shajareh Tayyebeh  Elementary School in the city of Minab, Hormozgan Province, in southern Iran. What began as an ordinary school day for hundreds of children aged primarily between seven and twelve ended in one of the deadliest single incidents involving civilians in the conflict. Official Iranian figures and subsequent reporting by independent organizations place the death toll at approximately 168 people, including well over 120 children, along with teachers, staff, and some parents who had come to collect their children. Dozens more were injured, many severely, with survivors suffering burns, amputations, crush injuries, and profound psychological trauma. The school building was largely destroyed.

This tragedy raises fundamental questions under international law about the protection of children and educational institutions during armed conflict. It engages core principles of International Humanitarian Law (IHL), the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, and the United Nations framework on children and armed conflict. The incident also highlights potential responsibilities of the attacking forces’ obligations regarding distinction, precautions, and proportionality, and the defending state. 

This article examines the factual context, the applicable legal frameworks, the specific rights violated, questions of accountability, and broader implications for the protection of children in war.

1.2 Factual Context

Minab is a city in southern Iran, roughly 90 kilometers east of Bandar Abbas, in a region with significant ethnic Baluch populations alongside other communities. Shajareh Tayyebeh Elementary School served both boys and girls, typically on separate floors in accordance with Iranian educational practice, and enrolled hundreds of students, many from surrounding villages. In the morning of the attack, reports indicate several hundred people were present, including students, teachers, and staff. As news of the broader military campaign spread, school authorities began contacting parents to come and take their children and prepared to close the school. The interval between the announcement of hostilities and the strike was short. Some parents arrived in time, others did not. Witness accounts describe children still in classrooms or moved toward a prayer hall for shelter when the strikes occurred. Some reports describe multiple impacts, including what has been characterized as a double-tap strike that hit survivors who had sought refuge.

The school’s physical location is central to legal analysis. It stood adjacent to a compound specifically linked to the Seyed al-Shohada complex.  The school was separate from the complex.  Both were having  separate walls with a distinct street entrance. The school operated openly as a civilian educational facility. No credible public evidence has established that it was actively used for military purposes on the day of the strike. 

Evidence from satellite imagery showing patterns of impacts across multiple buildings around the area and the characteristics of the weapons, strongly indicate the use of precision-guided Tomahawk cruise missiles of a type associated with United States forces. Preliminary assessments reported in major media outlets indicated that U.S. Central Command targeting relied on outdated Defense Intelligence Agency data that treated the school structure as part of the military site. The U.S. military acknowledged an investigation; as of mid-2026, full findings had not been publicly released, and senior officials offered limited transparency. Iranian authorities and state media attributed responsibility to the United States (and, more broadly, the joint campaign), while some U.S. statements initially denied or deflected. Human rights organizations, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, conducted open-source investigations concluding that the school was directly struck and that feasible precautions to verify the target’s civilian character appear not to have been taken.

Casualty figures have varied slightly across official Iranian announcements and independent tallies. Iranian judicial and local authorities reported totals around 155–168 dead, with substantial child majorities (for example, lists identifying 66 boys and 54 girls among student dead in one early count, or broader confirmations of over 120 children). Independent efforts by researchers matched names on body bags, caskets, and official lists to children under 13. Teachers—many of them women—were among the dead.  One child remained missing in some accounts. The human impact extended far beyond the immediate deaths: families from villages faced delayed arrivals that proved fatal; survivors endured prolonged entrapment under rubble; medical facilities were overwhelmed; and the community experienced collective trauma visible months later in cemeteries filled with small graves and ongoing grief.

Reports documented damage or destruction to hundreds of schools and educational facilities across Iran, with significant numbers of student and teacher casualties overall. The Minab incident stood out for its concentration of child deaths in a single functioning school during class hours.

1.3 Principles of International Humanitarian Law (IHL)

International humanitarian law, also known as the law of armed conflict, regulates the conduct of hostilities and protects persons not taking a direct part in hostilities. The four Geneva Conventions of 1949 and their Additional Protocols of 1977, together with Customary International Law, form the core Instruments regulating the conduct of war during arm conflict. Key principles in the instruments relevant to the Minab pogrom are distinction, precautions in attack, and proportionality.

The principle of distinction requires parties to distinguish at all times between civilians and combatants, and between civilian objects and military objectives. Attacks may be directed only against military objectives. Civilian objects are all objects that are not military objects. Schools and other educational buildings are paradigmatic civilian objects. Article 52 of Additional Protocol I provides that in case of doubt whether an object normally dedicated to civilian purposes, such as a school, is being used to make an effective contribution to military action, it shall be presumed not to be so used. Customary International Humanitarian Law reflects the same rule. Intentionally directing attacks against buildings dedicated to education, provided they are not military objectives, constitutes a war crime under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (Article 8(2)(b)(ix) for international armed conflicts and the corresponding provision for non-international conflicts).

A military objective is limited to those objects which by their nature, location, purpose, or use make an effective contribution to military action and whose total or partial destruction, capture, or neutralization, in the circumstances ruling at the time, offers a definite military advantage. Even if nearby military facilities constituted legitimate targets, the school itself retained its civilian character unless evidence showed it was being used to make an effective contribution to military action. Open-source investigations found no such evidence for the day of the attack; the building’s long-standing separation by walls and its continuous operation as a school supported the presumption of civilian status.

The obligation to take all feasible precautions in attack is equally fundamental (Additional Protocol I, Article 57). An attacking party must do everything feasible to verify that targets are military objectives, to choose means and methods that avoid or minimize incidental civilian harm, and to refrain from or cancel an attack if it becomes apparent that the target is not a military objective or that the attack would be disproportionate. Feasible precautions include the use of available intelligence, updated maps and databases, and real-time verification where possible. Reports that targeting coordinates derived from outdated data that failed to reflect the school’s separation and civilian use raise serious questions under this rule. Precision-guided munitions, while capable of reducing collateral damage when correctly employed, do not relieve the attacker of the duty to verify the target. Striking a school full of children during class hours on the basis of stale information is difficult to reconcile with the requirement of feasible precautions.

Proportionality prohibits attacks that may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof, which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated. Even if the broader compound contained military objectives of value, the anticipated civilian harm from striking a functioning elementary school during school hours—knowing or having reason to know that hundreds of children and teachers were present—would be extraordinarily high. The actual outcome, with over a hundred child deaths, illustrates the foreseeable scale of harm. Human Rights Watch and others have argued that the attack should be investigated as a potential war crime precisely because of these failures of distinction, precautions, and proportionality.

Indiscriminate attacks—those not directed at a specific military objective or that employ methods or means that cannot be directed at a specific military objective—are also prohibited. While the use of precision munitions argues against pure indiscriminateness in a technical sense, treating a clearly identifiable school as part of a military target without adequate verification can produce effects indistinguishable from an indiscriminate attack.

1.4 The Convention on the Rights of the Child and Special Protections for Children

Iran is a State Party to the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) . The CRC applies in both peacetime and armed conflict and reinforces, rather than replaces, IHL protections. Article 6 recognizes every child’s inherent right to life and requires States Parties to ensure to the maximum extent possible the survival and development of the child. The deliberate or reckless killing of more than a hundred children in a school constitutes a profound violation of this foundational right.

Article 28 recognizes the right of the child to education. Attacks that destroy schools and kill or injure students and teachers directly undermine this right, both for the victims and for the broader community whose educational infrastructure is damaged. The long-term developmental harm—lost years of schooling, trauma that impairs learning, and community disruption—extends the violation far beyond the day of the attack.

Article 38 is of particular importance. It requires States Parties to respect and ensure respect for rules of international humanitarian law applicable to them in armed conflicts which are relevant to the child. It further obliges them to take all feasible measures to ensure protection and care of children who are affected by an armed conflict. The Committee on the Rights of the Child has repeatedly emphasized that children must never be treated as collateral damage and that schools and hospitals must be protected. In the aftermath of the Minab strike, the Committee expressed deep disturbance at the loss of children’s lives and the impact of strikes on civilian infrastructure, calling for ceasefires and full respect for both human rights law and IHL.

UN Security Council resolutions on children and armed conflict identify six grave violations, two of which are directly engaged here: killing and maiming of children, and attacks on schools and hospitals. These violations trigger monitoring, reporting, and listing mechanisms. The Minab incident has been cited in UN forums, including Security Council open debates, as exemplifying both. Iranian representatives have characterized it as a war crime against children and demanded accountability; UN human rights experts have condemned the strike, underscored the protected status of schools and children, and called for independent, effective investigation and accountability.

1.5 Criminal Responsibility and War Crimes

Under the Rome Statute, war crimes include intentionally directing attacks against civilian objects, including buildings dedicated to education, provided they are not military objectives, as well as intentionally directing attacks against the civilian population as such or against individual civilians not taking direct part in hostilities. Serious violations of the laws and customs of war committed with intent or knowledge can give rise to individual criminal responsibility. Commanders and superiors may be responsible under doctrines of command responsibility if they knew or should have known of crimes by subordinates and failed to prevent or punish them.

Whether the Minab strike meets the mental element for a war crime depends on the precise facts of knowledge, intent, and recklessness. If decision-makers knowingly targeted a school full of children, or if they proceeded with reckless disregard for clear information that the target was a functioning school, individual liability could arise. Even if the attack resulted from systemic failures in intelligence updating and target verification rather than deliberate intent to kill children, the obligation to investigate and, where appropriate, prosecute remains. States have a duty under IHL and human rights law to investigate alleged violations by their forces, to prosecute where warranted, and to provide reparation to victims. Human Rights Watch has stressed that findings of outdated data do not convert a potential violation into a blameless mistake; the duty to take feasible precautions is not waived by bureaucratic error.

Amnesty International’s investigation similarly concluded that the United States was responsible for the strike with precision-guided munitions, that the school was directly hit, and that feasible precautions to avoid civilian harm were not taken. It called for a transparent public investigation, prosecution of those suspected of criminal responsibility, and reparations. Months after the attack, the continued lack of public release of investigation findings has been criticized as undermining accountability and the rights of victims’ families to truth and justice.

1.6 International Responses

United Nations human rights experts, the Committee on the Rights of the Child, UNESCO, UNICEF, and numerous non-governmental organizations condemned the attack and called for independent investigation. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International published detailed open-source analyses and demanded accountability. Iranian authorities pursued the matter in UN forums, framing it as a war crime and seeking international pressure. The United States conducted an internal investigation whose preliminary indications of responsibility and outdated targeting data were reported in the press, yet full public disclosure lagged. As of several months after the attack, families and the international community still lacked transparent findings, prosecutions, or meaningful reparations.

This accountability gap is not unique to Minab. Attacks on schools have occurred in numerous contemporary conflicts, often with limited consequences for perpetrators. The Safe Schools Declaration and related guidelines aim to strengthen protection of education, but political will and consistent enforcement remain insufficient. The Minab case, because of the scale of child casualties, the clarity of the school’s civilian character in open sources, and the involvement of a major military power using precision weapons, tests the credibility of the international legal order’s commitment to protecting children.

1.7 Protection of Education and Children’s Rights

The destruction of a single school and the killing of more than a hundred children reverberate far beyond the immediate victims. Education is both a right and a protective factor in conflict. Its disruption exacerbates vulnerability, trauma, and long-term developmental harm. Survivors of the Minab attack, and children throughout affected communities, face interrupted schooling, psychological scars, and a shattered sense of safety in what should be a protected space. The incident also fuels cycles of grievance and radicalization that can prolong conflict.

From a legal perspective, Minab underscores several persistent challenges. First, the quality and currency of targeting intelligence in high-tempo operations must meet the standard of feasible precautions; reliance on outdated data when open-source information clearly showed a functioning school is unacceptable. Second, the presumption of civilian status for schools must be rigorously applied. Third, both attacking and defending parties must internalize the special vulnerability of children and the heightened duty of care it imposes. Fourth, independent investigative mechanisms and genuine accountability are essential if the prohibitions are to have deterrent effect.

The rights violated in Minab are not abstract. They are the right to life of specific children who went to school with pencils and notebooks; the right to education of those who survived and those who will never return; the right of parents to see their children grow; and the collective right of a community not to have its future extinguished in a classroom. International law exists precisely to constrain the conduct of war so that such outcomes are not treated as inevitable or acceptable. Whether the law retains practical force depends on the willingness of states, international institutions, and the broader public to insist on investigation, truth, justice, and reparation.

1.8 Conclusion

The attack on Shajareh Tayyebeh Elementary School in Minab on 28 February 2026 resulted in the deaths of over 120 children and numerous adults in what should have been a protected civilian space. Under the IHL, the principles of distinction, precautions, and proportionality were engaged in the most serious way. Under the CRC, the rights to life, survival, development, education, and special protection in armed conflict were violated. The incident meets the definitional criteria for examination as a potential war crime under the Rome Statute and constitutes grave violations under the UN Children and Armed Conflict Framework.

From the forgoing, it is recommended that relevant investigation materials on the matter  should be immediately published and released to the public. Safe Schools Declaration and related norms should be strongly implemented by the states. Special protections afforded children under the CRC and IHL must be fully respected. Finally the children in armed conflict are entitled to absolute priority in protection. 

The children of Minab paid the highest price for failures to uphold that principle. The international community’s response will determine whether their deaths mark a further erosion of legal restraint or a catalyst for renewed commitment to the rules that exist to protect the most vulnerable.

1.9 REFERENCES

1. Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War (Fourth Geneva Convention), 12 August 1949; Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and Relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts (Additional Protocol I), 8 June 1977, especially Arts. 48, 51, 52, 57 (distinction, civilian objects, precautions, proportionality).

2. International Committee of the Red Cross, *Customary International Humanitarian Law*, Rules 1, 7, 8, 10, 11, 14, 15, 22 (distinction, military objectives, precautions against the effects of attacks, proportionality).

3. Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, 17 July 1998, Art. 8(2)(b)(i), 8(2)(b)(ix), and corresponding provisions for non-international armed conflicts (intentionally directing attacks against the civilian population or against buildings dedicated to education, provided they are not military objectives).

4. Convention on the Rights of the Child, 20 November 1989 (especially Arts. 6, 28, 38); Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict, 25 May 2000.

5. UN Security Council resolutions on children and armed conflict (identifying the six grave violations, including killing and maiming of children and attacks on schools and hospitals) and related monitoring and reporting mechanisms.

6. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International open-source investigations and statements on the Minab strike (concluding direct strike on the school, lack of feasible precautions to verify civilian character, and calls for transparent investigation, accountability, and reparations).

7. Reporting and visual investigations by major outlets and organisations (including New York Times, Reuters, BBC, CNN, The Guardian, Forensic Architecture/Sky News collaborations, and AP) documenting casualty figures, satellite imagery showing separation of the school from the IRGC compound, munitions consistent with U.S. Tomahawk missiles, and preliminary indications of reliance on outdated targeting data.

8. Statements and reactions by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, UNESCO, UNICEF, UN human rights experts, and Iranian and other representatives in UN forums condemning the strike, affirming the protected status of schools and children, and calling for independent investigation and accountability.

9. Safe Schools Declaration and related Guidelines for Protecting Schools and Universities from Military Use during Armed Conflict (soft-law instruments aimed at strengthening protection of education).

10. Iranian official figures and local prosecutorial statements on death tolls and composition of victims; independent name-matching and open-source casualty verification efforts identifying high numbers of child fatalities.