The US military stated it is "looking into" civilian harm reports from the Minab school strike. The IDF claimed "no knowledge" of any strike in the area. Neither government has released battle damage assessment data, and neither has addressed findings by CNN, The New York Times, and NBC News, whose teams independently identified fragments of a US BGM-109 Tomahawk cruise missile at the Shajareh Tayyebeh school site through geolocated video footage and debris analysis.
"Looking into" places the reports in the US military's Civilian Harm Assessment and Response Tracking system, established in 2022 after a decade of criticism over the Pentagon's civilian casualty record. That system's history offers a guide. The 2021 Kabul drone strike that killed aid worker Zemari Ahmadi and nine of his family members — seven of them children — was described by General Mark Milley as a "righteous strike" for three weeks before the Pentagon reversed itself. The 2017 Mosul strike that killed over 100 civilians sheltering in a building in the Jadidah neighbourhood was initially attributed to an ISIS car bomb. In both cases, open-source investigators and journalists established the facts months before the military acknowledged them.
The IDF's "no knowledge" is a different formulation. It does not deny a strike occurred; it claims ignorance of one. In a joint campaign where CENTCOM and the Israeli Air Force operate in coordinated airspace, this is a claim about institutional awareness rather than a denial of responsibility. It is also, functionally, a redirect: Tomahawk cruise missiles are US-only weapon systems, launched from US Navy vessels. Israel does not possess or operate them. The IDF's statement places responsibility entirely on its ally.
Iran's internet blackout, now in its sixth day at 1% of normal capacity, blocks independent on-the-ground verification. Hossein Kermanpour, Iran's Health Ministry spokesperson, claimed "about 180 young children" killed — a figure that has climbed from 148 to 165 as journalists reached the site and may rise further. No independent forensic team has been granted or sought access. The evidentiary picture rests entirely on open-source imagery, debris analysis, and witness accounts — methods that have proved reliable in Syria, Ukraine, and Yemen, but which no government involved has engaged with on the record. The congressional war powers votes expected this week will test whether forensic evidence that exists outside official channels carries political weight inside them.
