By Jessie Yeung

(CNN) — Two deadly US strikes on Iran during the opening salvo of the war, including one that hit an elementary school, may have been war crimes, a United Nations fact-finding mission concluded in a new report.

The report by the independent investigators also found that Iran may have committed crimes against humanity in its crackdown against government protesters.

The findings by the UN’s Independent International Fact-Finding Mission, which will be presented to the UN Human Rights Council, could be used by international courts like the International Criminal Court.

At least 156 people, including 120 children and 26 teachers, were killed when the school in the southern city of Minab was struck on February 28, according to Iranian officials. While there have been slight variances in the reported death toll, it would be considered one of the worst civilian casualty incidents in recent US military history.

The investigators also examined a second US strike on the same day, which hit a sports center and residential area in the southern city of Lamerd. The strike killed 22 civilians, according to the UN.

In both strikes, investigators “found reasonable grounds to believe the United States committed the war crime of launching indiscriminate attacks resulting in the loss of life or injury to civilians or damage to civilian objects,” said the report.

White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said in a statement, “The only party in this conflict that has committed war crimes is the Iranian regime, which has murdered thousands of its own people, killed Americans overseas, executed acts of terrorism in the Strait of Hormuz, and launched indiscriminate attacks against its neighbors in the region.”

“The President is courageously ensuring that such an evil country never possesses a nuclear weapon, which will make the entire world safer and more stable,” she added.

A US State Department official told CNN that the Trump administration does “not give credibility to findings this report.” They pointed out that President Donald Trump had formally withdrawn the US from the UN Human Rights Council in February 2025, just weeks after he took office, accusing the body of antisemitism.

The Department of Defense declined to comment, beyond noting that an investigation was ongoing and it had nothing to announce at the moment.

The US has not yet published its own investigation. But early evidence suggests the military accidentally hit the school due to outdated intelligence, as it attacked a neighboring Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps naval base, sources said.

The report was compiled by a team of independent investigators who analyzed satellite imagery, video and photos, information from credible organizations and experts, and conducted dozens of interviews both in and outside Iran.

The UN fact-finding mission’s report also analyzed Iran’s repression of anti-government protesters in late 2025 and early 2026, before the war with the US kicked off. The brutal crackdown killed thousands of people, while detainees were tortured and “disappeared” without notification to their families, it found.

These “gross violations amount to crimes against humanity,” the investigators said, describing the crackdown as “a widespread and systematic attack on civilians.” CNN has reached out to Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs for comment.

The investigators asked for unhindered access to Iran, which the Iranian government did not grant. Of all the UN’s information requests, Iran only responded to about a quarter, the report said.

They also requested meetings with US government officials, and information from the Israeli government, which went unanswered.

While the US is not a member of the International Criminal Court, the global body that investigates war crimes, it does have its own war crime laws.

The school strike

US Central Command created target coordinates for the strike that hit the Shajareh Tayyiba school in Minab using outdated information provided by the Defense Intelligence Agency, which contributed to the mistake, two sources briefed on the preliminary findings of the ongoing internal investigation told CNN in March.

Satellite imagery from 2013 showed that the school and the IRGC base were once part of the same compound. But images from 2016 revealed that a fence had been erected to separate the school from the rest of the base, and that a separate entrance to the school had been built.

Imagery from December 2025 showed dozens of people in the school’s courtyard, apparently playing.

“No information indicates that the school was used for military purposes at the time,” the report found. “The US failed in its obligation to do everything feasible to verify that it was a military objective.”

Trump had initially asserted that Iran might be to blame for the strike, though when pressed on why no one in his own administration seemed to be publicly supporting that claim, he responded: “Because I just don’t know enough about it.”

But the Pentagon’s internal investigation has been stuck in limbo for months.

The first two stages of a standard investigation were completed within a week of the strike – answering basic questions about whether the strike had hit the intended target and determining that the US was responsible. But the third stage, where Defense Intelligence Agency analysts review satellite imagery and other intelligence sources, has not yet been ordered by the Pentagon, three sources familiar with the matter told CNN in July.

That review would typically provide a more holistic determination about what took place and how a strike impacted the broader mission and would almost always be conducted in the immediate aftermath of a noteworthy strike, they said.

Another independent investigation was separately launched, which included interviews with military service members involved in the strike. But any information gleaned from those interviews has been “locked down” by US Central Command with only a handful of officers permitted access to the details, sources said.

CNN previously reported that senior US military commanders bypassed warnings in critical databases that intelligence about potential targets in Iran was severely out of date and went ahead with approving strikes – including one that hit the school.

This story has been updated with additional information.

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