Amnesty International has concluded that the United States is responsible for a February 28 missile strike on a primary school in Minab, southern Iran, that killed at least 170 people, most of them children. The rights group said on Monday that a US-manufactured Tomahawk missile was likely used in the attack, which also hit structures in an adjacent Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) compound. Amnesty’s investigation, based on satellite imagery, video analysis, and expert interviews, found that the school was directly struck, indicating a failure by US forces to take feasible precautions to avoid civilian harm.

The organization said the attack represents a serious breach of international humanitarian law and may amount to a war crime. Amnesty’s senior director Erika Guevara-Rosas stated that if the US failed to identify the building as a school, it would show gross negligence and a major intelligence failure. Alternatively, if the US knew the school’s location and still proceeded, it would constitute a reckless and indiscriminate attack. The United Nations and US lawmakers have called for accountability, while Washington has said it is investigating the incident.

The Minab strike has intensified scrutiny of the ongoing US-Israeli war on Iran, which legal experts say violates international law, and raised concerns about US officials’ dismissive remarks regarding rules of engagement.