Was the air strike on an Iranian school a war crime?

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1:17Oona Hathaway:A warning before we begin today's show. This episode contains some graphic descriptions of violence. On Saturday, February 28th, in the opening hours of the US-Israel war in Iran, A missile slammed into an elementary school in the city of Minab in southeastern Iran. Saturday is the start of the Iranian work week, meaning school was likely underway when the blast tore through the building. Iranian officials say up to 168 people were killed, most of them children between the ages of 7 and 12. While the U.S. president initially said he thought Iran did it, Last week, there were reports that U.S. military investigators believe American forces were likely responsible, but that they haven't reached a final conclusion.

2:09Oona Hathaway:From the BBC, I'm Tristan Redmond in Paris. And I'm Asma Khalid in Washington, D.C. And today on The Global Story, how did this strike on a school happen? And what questions does this raise about how the U.S. military is waging this war?

2:36Oona Hathaway:Coming up, we'll be speaking to an international law expert who's also advised the U.S. government in the past. First, though, we want to understand how this all happened. And to get a better handle on everything we know so far, we reached out to Merlin Thomas, one of our colleagues at BBC Verify. That's a special unit within the BBC that uses open-source intelligence and satellite imagery to verify video and fact-check information. We asked Merlin to wind back the clock to Saturday, February the 28th. Now, that was the first day of the war. It was the day Iran's supreme leader was killed. And it was also the day that that school in southern Iran was hit.

3:13Merlyn Thomas:The Iranian authorities said that the first strikes had been reported at about 10.45 a.m. So that's around an hour after U.S.-Israel began attacking Iran. And initially, reports had come out that there had been strikes on this school and that there had been damage on the school building. The first kind of videos we were seeing were aftermath footage. So you're seeing people rushing into the courtyard of the school. You can see dark smoke plumes pouring out of the school building. There are scenes of panic as families are kind of trying to figure out what's going on. All of this is footage circulating online.

3:50Merlyn Thomas:And that's where we're getting it from. We're able to verify it using location identifiers, walls, the coloured patterns on the side of the school building, all those kinds of particular details. That's how we geolocated exactly where that is. And that's basically just a fancy term for saying this is where something is. You know, this is how we know where it is and this is how we know it's new. We knew it was authentic. Initially, in the reports, we could see people kind of going through rubble and later, you know, more footage emerge published by state media. And this is when the footage gets more graphic.

4:25Merlyn Thomas:And we're looking at bodies of what appear to be children underneath kind of rubble. And you can see kind of we've seen severed arms. And I'm sorry for kind of going into the detail. But it's important, I think, to say, you know, we at BBC Verify are having to go through the footage of those dead bodies and things like that. Because we see that it is so crucial to verify that who has been killed by these strikes. And so we knew there was a school building, but this military base was right next to the school building. This is all part of the jigsaw puzzle of pieces that we were putting together as footage was emerging.

5:01Oona Hathaway:In those early moments, what was the claim and counterclaim about what had actually happened?

5:07Merlyn Thomas:Iran said that this was a strike by US and Israel. And at the time, the US and Israel had no kind of comment on it initially. and quickly after that there was no real denial or acceptance of responsibility from either side. Israel had said that they were not aware of any operations in the area, but Iran had maintained that this was a US-Israeli strike.

5:33Oona Hathaway:Okay, so on day four of the conflict, so that's Tuesday the 3rd of March, there are pictures of a mass funeral that's held in Minab. Iranian officials have said that there were up to 168 people killed, But how do you actually go about confirming those figures?

5:49Merlyn Thomas:It's really hard. It's really hard to confirm the numbers. And that is just kind of the long and short of it. I mean, Iranian authorities say that 168 people were killed. They say that 110 of them were children. Now, it's really hard to verify those numbers. There was a handwritten list published by Iranian media. So these are names with the dates of birth. Now, 48 of those names were aged between 6 and 11. Now, in terms of those names, there's not that much more we were able to do in terms of verification. But what also emerged when you talk about the kind of broadcast footage of the funeral, there were images of small coffins, adult sized coffins.

6:30Merlyn Thomas:And these coffins had people's faces on, children's faces on, children's names on sometimes. And we were able to match up three names from the list to three names that were on the outside of these coffins. So it's that kind of granular level of detail that we can go through, but it's still far away from the number of 168 people killed and 110 children. But it's worth saying that the education ministry says that the school itself had 264 pupils.

7:00Oona Hathaway:Well, there's that image, Merlin, of holes in the ground taken from above that many people will have seen. Were you able to verify that image and where did it come from?

7:12Merlyn Thomas:Well, this image was the real game changer for us when we were doing our investigation. So you can see scorch marks, you can see the type of impact point they are, you can see whether a crater is particularly down and how that feeds into whether or not what kind of missile may have been used or what kind of weapon may have caused that. And so when we showed that to experts, several experts said that this showed that there were signs of multiple strikes, that this area had been hit more than once. And the proximity of those targets showed that there was an intentionality to the targeting as well, that this had been likely done on purpose.

7:49Oona Hathaway:So when you're looking at the satellite imagery, what does it tell you about the actual area in this town that was attacked?

7:56Merlyn Thomas:So the school building kind of area itself is in the top right hand corner. And then the military base is just to the southwest of it. And it's almost like an L shape. The rest of the compound is the military base. Now, there's been intense speculation about whether or not the school building was part of it. on Google, satellite imagery, so this is available to anyone, you can kind of look at old publicly available images of this area. In 2013, it appears that it was part of the same compound.

8:27Oona Hathaway:The school and the military base were together as one.

8:31Merlyn Thomas:It appears so, yeah, in 2013. And then in 2016, we see that there is a clear wall separating the two, even in historical imagery that there was a wall of separation between the school and the military base.

8:45Oona Hathaway:On Wednesday, March 4th, our colleague Tom Bateman here in Washington, D.C., he asked the Defense Secretary of the United States, Pete Hegseth, about the school. Can you give us an update on what the administration knows, what you know now about the reported strike on a girls' school in southern Iran on Saturday?

9:05Merlyn Thomas:All I know, all I can say is that we're investigating that. We, of course, never target civilian targets, but we're taking a look at investigating that.

9:13Oona Hathaway:Red tie in front. Just on the basis that with the information you would have, your reconnaissance abilities, ability to gather information. I mean, it's several days on now. So is there any clarity on whose munition this was? We're investigating it. Thank you. And then a couple of days later, the president of the United States is on Air Force One. And he suggests that this all could have been carried out by Iran. Mr. President, did the United States bomb a girls' elementary school in southern Iran on the first day of the war in California? No, in my opinion, based on what I've seen, that was done by Iran.

9:50Oona Hathaway:Is that true, Mr. Hicks? It was Iran who did that? We're certainly investigating. Still investigating? But the only side that targets civilians is Iran. We think it was done by Iran. Because they're very inaccurate, as you know, with their munitions. They have no accuracy whatsoever. It was done by Iran. So at this point, the United States is not accepting any responsibility. We have heard the Pentagon say that they're going to conduct an investigation. And Merlin, I know you and your team at Verify are also investigating the story. So as it's all unfolding, what are you seeing? And do you begin to see any indications of who is responsible for these strikes?

10:33Merlyn Thomas:Well, a couple of days after the kind of game-changing satellite image that we were able to analyse, one really key piece of footage came out. This was published by the Iranian state media. It's one of the kind of affiliated semi-official news agency's mayor.

10:53Merlyn Thomas:Just to describe to you, this showed a missile just moments before detonating in what we were then able to verify was the military base. Now, this was crucial because, A, it gives you the chance to look at what kind of missile this was. And we were able to give this footage to munitions experts who were able to slow it down, zoom in, and identify that this was a U.S. Tomahawk missile. So this was the first time we were able to kind of see any clue about what weapon was used, right? So you see the missile coming in, and as the camera pans to the right, you can see that there's already smoke rising above the school building.

11:35Merlyn Thomas:Now, this might seem like an insignificant detail, but it's crucial because it shows that that school building was likely already hit before this missile comes in to hit the military base. And that's also likely why we think that someone was filming. because you might ask why is someone filming over this area at the very moment that a missile comes in to detonate, right? But it's because, I mean, it's kind of human instinct. If something's already happened, you kind of, you know, you then get your camera out to say, okay, is something going to happen next? I want to show the smoke plumes. I want to show something else.

12:11Merlyn Thomas:And at that very moment, that's when the footage shows the missile detonating and the kind of dark smoke plume rises above. This we showed to munitions experts, and obviously they identified the missile itself, but they also were able to say, actually, this shows that this operation, because of the fact that it's a U.S. weapon, a U.S. Tomahawk missile, a very identifiable weapon, it shows that it was likely a U.S. operation. That's what experts told us. The combination of satellite evidence showing the multiple strike points, as well as this footage showing the US Tomahawk missile hitting the military base, that, they said, points to the likelihood that this was a US operation.

12:55Merlyn Thomas:Now, just to be clear, this Tomahawk missile does not land on the school building. That's not what we see. But the experts we spoke to said that this shows that this was a likely kind of targeting of the area. And there's this moment, the day after, you know, this key piece of missile footage came out where reporters were asking President Trump why he was the only one blaming, continuing to blame Iran. And he claims that Iran has tomahawk missiles. Mr.

13:23Oona Hathaway:President, you just suggested that Iran somehow got its hands on a tomahawk and bombed its own elementary school on the first day of the war. But you're the only person in your government saying this. Even your defense secretary wouldn't say that when he was asked, standing over your shoulder on your plane on Saturday. Why are you the only person saying this? Because I just don't know enough about it. I think it's something that I was told is under investigation. But tomahawks are used by others, as you know. Numerous other nations have tomahawks. They buy them from us. But I will certainly, whatever the report shows, I'm willing to live with that report.

13:59Oona Hathaway:What was your reaction when you heard that?

14:01Merlyn Thomas:I mean, I was shocked. I was like, even, I was like, I'm sure this isn't right. I was like, I know this isn't. But I was like, you kind of have to, you kind of start doubting yourself. And so I got on the phone with munitions experts that I work with regularly, and I said, hey, listen to this. And they just kind of scoffed at me. They were like, listen, this is, it's just, that's not possible. Iran are not known to have Tomahawk missiles. I don't know what to tell you. I mean, maybe the president has intelligence that we don't have access to, but that's the only thing that could possibly be the reason.

14:30Oona Hathaway:So who are the countries there, to be clear, who have Tomahawk missiles?

14:34Merlyn Thomas:The countries known to have Tomahawk missiles are the UK, Japan, Australia, the Netherlands, and of course the US. That's it. Not Iran and also not Israel, you're saying?

14:45Oona Hathaway:Exactly. Now, despite what President Trump said, there have been news reports in American media outlets that contradict what he said. In fact, according to the BBC's partner CBS News, a preliminary assessment of the incident by American officials suggests that the U.S. was likely to have been responsible, but that it did not intentionally target the school and may have hit the site in error.

15:09Merlyn Thomas:What did you think when you heard that? When something goes wrong, there are a number of reasons why they may have gone wrong. Now, we can't verify that that is what happened. There are, you know, things like weapons malfunctions. Then there's targeting errors, which is what obviously CBS are reporting, which we can't verify, but those exist too. And then there's just outdated intelligence. Again, none of these are verifiable. I mean, when we went to the U.S. government to put our findings to them, when the experts said that this is a U.S. Tomahawk missile, They just said it would be completely inappropriate for us to comment on an ongoing investigation.

15:45My colleague Tom Bateman has asked when that will be delivered,

15:49Merlyn Thomas:and there's still no end in sight for that, so we don't have a date for when that's going to come. If the U.S. is found to be responsible, it would make it one of the worst single cases of civilian casualty by the U.S. in decades in the Middle East. But we're still waiting to see what happens from the investigation, and we'll see what happens.

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16:53Oona Hathaway:We want to understand more about how these decisions to strike targets are actually made by the US military in the first place. What sort of legal and moral calculations shape their decisions? So we called up Ona Hathaway, a professor of international law at Yale University, who previously worked as a special counsel to the general counsel at the Department of Defense during the Obama administration.