An Israeli airstrike has hit a girls’ elementary school in the city of Minab, located in southern Iran’s Hormozgan province, killing at least 53 people, according to Iranian state media. The attack has brought the heavy civilian toll of the joint US-Israeli military operation into sharper focus.
Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency reported that rescue workers are continuing to clear rubble from the site of the strike, which also injured 63 others on Saturday. The attack is part of a broader wave of US-Israeli military actions across Iran that has ignited a new bout of regional violence.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi condemned the strike, sharing an image of the aftermath and stating that the school, along with “innocent children,” had been destroyed.
“These crimes against the Iranian People will not go unanswered,” Araghchi wrote in a post on X.
Esmail Baghaei, a spokesperson for Iran’s Foreign Ministry, also denounced what he termed a “blatant crime” and called for urgent action from the United Nations Security Council.
In a separate incident, Iran’s Mehr news agency reported that at least two students were killed in another Israeli attack on a school east of the capital, Tehran.
Reporting from the Iranian capital, Al Jazeera’s Mohammed Vall noted that the attacks appear to contradict assurances from US and Israeli officials.
“These strikes call into question US and Israeli claims that they are targeting only military sites and seeking to punish the regime, not the people of Iran,” Vall said. “President Trump has promised the Iranian people that aid or help is on the way, but now we are seeing civilian casualties. This is something the Iranian government will highlight as a violation of international law and an act of aggression against the Iranian people.”
There was no immediate response from the US or Israel regarding the specific allegations of the school strikes.
The civilian toll in Iran has been significant before. During the last major exchange of fire between the US and Iran in June 2025 a conflict that sparked a 12-day war thousands of civilians were killed or injured, and public infrastructure sustained heavy damage, according to Iran’s Ministry of Health and Medical Education.
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