There’s “reasonable grounds” to believe the U.S. committed war crimes when launching strikes against Iran, a United Nations-commissioned panel of human rights experts said Thursday.
The international fact-checking mission on Iran found that two U.S. strikes could warrant war crimes, including an attack on a school in the southern city of Inab.
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“Following the United States and Israeli attacks on 28 February, the mission 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,” the fact-finding team said in a statement.
The panel, chaired by jurist Sara Hossain of Bangladesh, was established in 2022 by the Human Rights Council and consists of three members: Hossain, Viviana Krsticevic of Argentina and Max du Plessis from South America.
Girls’ school struck in Iran
One incident involved a Tomahawk missile that struck a girls’ school on Feb. 28, the opening day of the Iran war. As many as 175 people, mostly grade school-aged girls, died after a preliminary report found the U.S. made a mistake and targeted the school.
As Straight Arrow previously reported, the report stated the U.S. was targeting a nearby Iranian military base and that the school building was formerly a part of the military installation.
The panel, however, claims “the building of the school was the intended point of impact,” and the damage was not the result of an errant strike or collateral damage from attacks on the military compound.
The strike drew fierce backlash in the early days of the conflict against Iran, but U.S. Central Command has maintained that it does not target civilians.
The second attack
The panel also examined an attack involving precision strike missiles. The human rights experts say the missiles launched tungsten pellets over a “clearly identifiable sports complex and residential area.”
That incident took place the same day as the strike on the school, and left 22 civilian men and women dead. U.S. Central Command denied responsibility for the strike.
Iran government’s own crimes
In addition to finding the U.S. may have committed war crimes, the panel also determined the Iranian government has carried out “violent repression” on Iranian civilians. It said civilians have faced “gross human rights violations and crimes against humanity committed by their own government.”
Now, experts on the panel say the U.S. and Iran should halt all violations and crimes, and provide “full reparations to victims.”
The Trump administration has not responded to the panel’s findings.
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