The United States, which has been carrying out attacks on Iran for some time, is facing allegations of committing several war crimes in the country, following the release of new findings by the UN Human Rights Council’s Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Iran on Thursday. The mission stated it found reasonable grounds to believe the US committed war crimes in two strikes on Iran, which together killed nearly 178 civilians, including women and children. While the US carried out several strikes on Iran over the course of the conflict, the fact-finding mission focused specifically on two incidents from a single day — a Tomahawk missile strike on a school in Minab, and an airstrike on a sports complex and residential area in the city of Lamerd — both of which resulted in the deaths of innocent civilians.
The mission also alleged that Iran’s own security forces have carried out severe atrocities within the country, stating that Iranian civilians are caught between two crises — human rights violations and crimes against humanity committed by their own government on one side, and war with the US and Israel on the other. The findings, submitted to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, are expected to strengthen the international body of evidence gathered on crimes committed during the Iran war, potentially aiding future efforts to pursue justice in international courts.
The strike on the school in Minab, which occurred at the very start of the war in West Asia, is known to have shocked the world. On February 28, as the US struck IRGC positions in Iran, a missile hit a primary school in the city. The mission said credible information confirmed 157 deaths in the strike, including 123 children aged 13 and younger, identifying the weapon used as a Tomahawk Land Attack Missile — a weapon used exclusively by the US during the conflict; other reports at the time, including from Amnesty International and Iran’s ambassador to the UN, cited death tolls running as high as around 170.
Regarding the second strike, US Central Command has denied responsibility for the attack on Lamerd, where the mission said a US-made Precision Strike Missile detonated in the air, dispersing roughly 180,000 tungsten pellets over the area and killing 22 civilian men and women while damaging nearby homes and a school. In both cases, the mission concluded that US conduct went beyond mere negligence, amounting to the war crime of launching an indiscriminate attack on civilian targets.
The mission further cited statements by President Donald Trump and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, saying their rhetoric reflected a “deprioritization” of measures to mitigate civilian harm under international humanitarian law. Regardless of the circumstances surrounding the strikes, the mission’s findings underscore the continuing need for accountability over the devastation caused by the attacks in Minab and Lamerd.