Top Trump administration officials said on Wednesday that they were still investigating whether it was a U.S. airstrike that hit a girls elementary school in Iran on the opening day of the war.
The strike was one of the deadliest attacks of the American-Israeli campaign against Iran so far, killing at least 175 people, most of whom were likely children, according to state media and health officials.
It is not clear why the school was hit, or which country’s forces fired at it.
Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, was asked at a briefing Wednesday afternoon if the United States had conducted the airstrike on the school. “Not that we know of,” she responded. “The Department of War is investigating this matter.”
Asked again several minutes later if there was any evidence that it was not a U.S. strike, or, conversely, if there had been any assessment as to whether Israel had played a role in the attack, she said: “Again, the Department of War is currently investigating this matter.”
During his press briefing at the Pentagon on Wednesday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth also was asked about the strike.
“All I can say is that we’re investigating that,” Mr. Hegseth said. “We of course never target civilian targets, but we’re taking a look and investigating that.”
The strike occurred on Saturday, the first day of the war. Given that several days had passed, wouldn’t there be some clarity by now about who was responsible, Mr. Hegseth was asked. “We’re investigating it,” he repeated.
The school that was hit was called Shajarah Tayyebeh. It was in a small town in the south called Minab. Thousands of mourners filled the town’s streets on Tuesday for funerals. According to video footage verified by The New York Times, rows of graves were dug by workmen at a nearby cemetery, about five miles from the elementary school.
The United Nations cultural and education agency, UNESCO, wrote in a statement on social media that “the killing of pupils” at the school constituted a “grave violation of the protection afforded to schools under international humanitarian law.”
When Ms. Leavitt was asked about the attack at the briefing on Wednesday, she said that “the United States of America does not target civilians, unlike the rogue Iranian regime that targets civilians, that kills children, that has killed thousands of their own people in the past several weeks.”
She said that the Iranian regime “uses propaganda quite effectively,” and that many of the reporters in the White House briefing room “have fallen for that propaganda.”
“So I would caution you from pointing a finger at the United States of America when it comes to targeting civilians,” she added, “because that’s not something that these armed forces do.”
Malachy Browne and Pranav Baskar contributed reporting.
Shawn McCreesh is a White House reporter for The Times covering the Trump administration.
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