U.N. Experts Say U.S. Strikes on Iranian School and Sports Centre May Be War Crimes

U.N.-commissioned human rights experts said there are "reasonable grounds" to believe the United States committed war crimes in strikes on Iran earlier this year. Associated Press

The assessment, published on Sept. 17, centers on U.S. strikes on an Iranian school and a sports centre which the U.N. mission said may constitute war crimes. Gujarat Samachar The experts said the circumstances went beyond negligence.

At the core is a strike on a girls' primary school in Minab, in Iran's Hormozgan province. U.N. experts expressed profound shock and grief after the school was hit, and strongly condemned the deadly missile strike in a March press release. OHCHR The condemnation treated the school as a protected civilian object, a place the laws of war set off limits from attack.

Attribution is still disputed but has narrowed. U.S. military investigators believe it is likely that U.S. forces were responsible for an apparent strike on the girls' school. Reuters That internal U.S. assessment was reported on March 6, the same day as the U.N. experts' condemnation.

The school strike did not stand alone. U.N. experts reported that unlawful military operations conducted between 28 February and early April 2026 killed at least 3,375 civilians. OHCHR That figure places the Minab and sports-centre incidents within a wider pattern of civilian harm during that period.

A parallel U.N. track addressed other actors in the same escalation. The Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on the Islamic Republic of Iran issued a March statement strongly condemning strikes against Iran by Israel. OHCHR In April, the Mission called on parties to the devastating regional conflict to end it. OHCHR

The broader context here is legal as much as diplomatic, and it turns on standards of proof. "Reasonable grounds" is the working language of U.N. fact-finding. Think of it like a medical referral: enough symptoms to send the case to a specialist, not a final diagnosis. It means investigators think there is enough evidence to apply the laws of war, including distinction between civilians and fighters, proportionality in avoiding excessive civilian harm, and precaution in checking targets. It is not a criminal conviction. The shift from condemnation in March to a war-crimes formulation in September matters for lawyers. Condemnation registers gravity. A war-crimes finding points to individual criminal responsibility and state responsibility, and shapes any future discussion of command responsibility, targeting procedures and battle-damage assessment.

Looking at what this means for accountability, the institutional map is fragmented. Special-procedures experts and an independent fact-finding mission work under separate mandates, with different methods for gathering evidence and different political reception. That split can weaken pressure. It can also preserve multiple records. The "beyond negligence" language is important here. It points away from error or collateral-incident explanations and toward failure to take feasible precautions or to verify the civilian character of the target. Whether domestic military courts or international courts take up that question will test the credibility of compliance rules that the United States and Israel both claim to follow, and that Iran will now cite.

In my view, the stakes reach beyond the two sites named. A toll of 3,375 civilian deaths over roughly five weeks, described by U.N. experts as resulting from unlawful operations, creates a factual baseline that diplomats cannot easily set aside in ceasefire, de-escalation or reparations talks. The April call to end the regional conflict went unheeded in its specifics, but the September finding changes the cost of resumption. For governments weighing further strikes, the Minab case will serve as a reference point on schools, on verification, and on what investigators consider excusable.