UN rights chief implores US to investigate Iran school strike

Multiple UN members and governors have called for the US to conclude its probe into the attack. The US opened an investigation into the attack on March 11, with the Pentagon claiming that it was indeed a US missile that struck the school. UN Human Rights chief Volker Turk is imploring Donald Trump to conclude the probe and publish the official results. Neither Israeli nor US officials in Geneva immediately responded ⁠to questions about the incident and the status of their investigations. Their seats ⁠were empty as both had disengaged from the body. Pakistan’s ambassador to the UN in Geneva, Bilal Ahmad, called the death’ unconscionable, and China’s ambassador Jia Guide ⁠said he was deeply shocked.

On March 7, Donald Trump was asked about the bombing. Trump claimed that Iran was responsible for the attack on its own people. Trump claimed that “Based on what I’ve seen, that was done by Iran”. Evidence emerged later that day that the school had been struck by a Tomahawk missile, a kind of missile that the US produces. The United States is the only country involved in the war on Iran that has possession of Tomahawk missiles. When pressed about his comments on March 10, Donald Trump backtracked on his statement from March 7.

Trump claimed that he didn’t know enough about the incident to make claims about the details of the attack. He added that the US would open a probe into the attack to try to decipher how it happened. He also assured voters that he would accept the results of the probe. It was a sudden shift from his certainty that Iran perpetrated the attack to an acceptance that the US may be at fault.

Trump has not admitted any wrongdoing, and Washington has not released the results of its probe. The Guardian reported that an unnamed US official claimed the attack was due to a targeting mistake courtesy of the US military. The school was located near a base belonging to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, was present on the video call, as it was Iran who called the emergency debate. Araghchi told the council that despite what Trump claimed, the attack was not a miscalculation, and the students of Shajareh Tayyebeh Girls’ School were murdered in cold blood.

UN rapporteur for education, Farida Shaheed, told the council that the school had been struck with precise munitions. More than 600 schools and education facilities have been destroyed or severely damaged by US-Israeli attacks so far in Iran, while at least 230 children and teachers have been killed, according to her office.

As of March 27^th, preliminary figures show harrowing victim counts across the Middle East. In Iran, more than 1,900 people have been killed by US and Israeli strikes. US forces have struck more than 7,000 locations in Iran, and alongside the 1,937 killed, another 24,800 Iranians have been injured, and more than 3 million people have been displaced.

A US strike targeting an all-girls elementary school killed 168 children. In Lebanon, more than 1,000 people have been killed by Israeli strikes, with another 3,100 injured and more than 1 million civilians displaced. Thirteen US servicemembers have been killed, and 19 people have been killed in Israel. Since February 28, 168 people have been killed by Iranian strikes across Gulf Countries.

On February 28, 2026, the US government and Israel undertook a joint operation in Iran, with the US subsequently declaring it was at war with the country. The attacks triggered retaliatory strikes from Iran, targeting US and Israeli military bases across the Middle East.

According to Donald Trump, there is no timeline for this war, and the US will continue its operations in the country until it sees a significant regime change, as well as an end to Iran’s supposed nuclear program.

US and Israeli strikes killed Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, on Day One of the war, completing Trump’s supposed goal. Khamenei has been using deadly violence against civilian protesters in Tehran, and his killing has been the only positive piece of Donald Trump’s illegal intervention. Donald Trump changed his reasoning for attacking Iran after Khamenei’s death, instead claiming he attacked Iran because he had certain information that Iran was going to attack Israel and the United States. Israel calls the strategy ‘forward defence’.