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The U.S. Defense Department has appointed an external officer to investigate a deadly airstrike on a school in Iran after preliminary findings indicated that American forces may have been responsible for the Feb. 28 attack that killed more than 170 people.
Speaking at a Pentagon news conference on Friday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) had assigned a general officer from outside the command to conduct a formal inquiry into the incident.
Hegseth also asserted that U.S. forces do not deliberately target civilians. "We don’t target civilians. Iran does. We will investigate. We’ll get to the truth, and we’ll share it when we have it," he said.
The Feb. 28 attack hit Shajareh Tayyebeh Elementary School in the southern Iranian city of Minab during joint U.S.-Israeli strikes across the country. At least 150 schoolgirls were killed in the strike, part of a wider campaign that left more than 1,300 people dead and over 10,000 injured.
The issue emerged during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing where senior military officials testified on defense readiness and the Pentagon’s proposed 2027 budget.
During the hearing, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand raised concerns about reports that a U.S. missile struck a girls’ school in Iran, questioning whether outdated intelligence may have contributed to the strike. "We have seen horrific reports of a U.S. missile hitting a girls school in Iran … The data that was looked at was a decade old," Gillibrand said, adding that publicly available satellite imagery already showed the location was a school.
Gen. Alexus Grynkewich, NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, said he would not speculate on the incident but noted that such events can result from multiple failures. "There’s usually a chain of errors and mistakes that happen similar to an aviation accident or some other transportation accident, and we just need to let the investigation play out and find all those factors," he said.
China said Friday it will provide emergency humanitarian assistance to victims of the school attack, condemning strikes on civilian targets.
Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said the Red Cross Society of China would send $200,000 in aid to the Iranian Red Crescent to support affected families.
"Attacking schools and harming civilians seriously violate international humanitarian law and cross the baseline of humanity and human conscience," Guo said.
He also called for all parties to halt military operations and return to dialogue to prevent further escalation in the Middle East.
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