Global media have confirmed the authenticity of video footage from an Iranian school where, according to Iranian authorities, more than 150 people were killed, including around 100 children.
The materials were verified by fact-checkers at Reuters, the BBC, The Washington Post, as well as the Persian fact-checking outlet Factnameh. The verification included geolocation, comparison with satellite imagery, and analysis of visual details. The footage shows a school in the city of Minab, in Iran’s southern Hormozgan province.
The video shows a destroyed school building with smoke rising above it, as people run toward the site of the strike. In photographs circulated by Iranian media, school backpacks stained with blood are visible among the debris, along with bodies placed in bags. Western newsrooms emphasize that the images themselves have been deemed authentic, but international journalists have no independent confirmation of the death toll on the ground due to restricted access to the region.
According to Iranian authorities and state media, 148 people were killed in the strike and another 95 were injured. These figures have been reported without the possibility of external verification. U.S. Central Command said it is aware of reports of civilian casualties and is reviewing the information as it becomes available.
Additional context highlighted by several Western outlets is that the school is located near facilities linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. According to investigations by BBC Persian and Le Monde, the strikes may also have hit a neighboring IRGC complex, which, under the Iranian authorities’ account, does not absolve responsibility for the deaths of civilians.
Iran has blamed Israel and the United States for the strike.
Israel has not confirmed the information. “We are not aware of any Israeli or U.S. strikes in the area of the school. I know that the Americans are reviewing this information, and we are reviewing it as well,” said Nadav Shoshani, a spokesperson for the Israeli military.