Thousands of schoolchildren gathered in the courtyard of Imam Reza's mosque in Mashhad to honor the memory of children from Minab and mark the martyrdom of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei. This ceremony turned the first day of the school year into a moment of mourning, remembrance, and defiance.
Under the golden dome, students chanted: 'Death to America. Death to Israel.' These shouts were not like a routine slogan, but an expression of deep sorrow. They remembered the tragedy in Minab that occurred on February 28, when American and Israeli forces began war against Iran.
An attack was carried out at Shajareh Tayebah School in Minab during classes. UNICEF reported the death of 168 schoolchildren and teachers. For the remaining families, this is not just statistics, but a list of names that no one wants to read.
A recent conclusion by the Independent International Investigative Mission of the UN for Iran added a new aspect to this issue. The mission stated that there are strong grounds to believe that the United States was responsible for the February strikes, including the attack on the school in Minab, and recognized both incidents as war crimes. The mission noted that the strike on Minab was an indiscriminate attack on civilian infrastructure, and established that US forces did not take feasible steps to verify whether the school was a military target.
This finding changes the focus of the discussion: it is no longer just about Iran's version, but about how international law and accountability are at the center of the debate, as the investigation was sanctioned by the UN. The question now is whether the world will demand accountability for the death of these children.
In most regions of Iran, the first day of school is the same: new shoes, the smell of fresh notebooks, and the nervousness of children. However, in Minab, this ordinary morning did not happen. Beds remained made, breakfast grew cold, and no one packed a lunch because there was no one to feed. The school gates opened to absence, not to noise.
This is the part of the war that official briefings do not cover. Officials in Washington and Tel Aviv speak of targets and deterrence, using administrative and controlled language. But a missile does not know such concepts; it only reacts to what is in front of it—a wall, a roof, or a classroom where children are studying. When one of the missiles hit Shajareh Tayebah, it did not stop to ask if the children were studying arithmetic or reading a poem; it simply struck the target.
The children gathered under the golden dome of Imam Reza's mosque realized the truth that their own government had been saying for years, and which now seemed true to them: in Iran, war is not a theory. It is a reality with a casualty count among familiar people.
The deceased were not abstractions. They were girls helping mothers prepare on weekends, boys playing football outside until dark, children sharing a pencil so a friend wouldn't have to ask a teacher. Teachers stayed late for a student facing a problem. They had names, daily routines, small arguments with siblings, weekend plans—and then they all disappeared at once.
The first day of school should be a beginning. In Minab, it became a reminder of everything that was cut short. In other parts of the country, buses arrived at schools, and children argued over seats. In Minab, families went to the cemetery carrying flowers because there was nothing else to bring.
The slogan sounded again under the dome: 'Death to America. Death to Israel.' It is easy to hear only the slogan, but beneath it lies a generation growing up while absorbing decisions made in rooms they will never enter. For these children, war is not a map with arrows, but a photograph pinned to the wall of their home. It is a family that still remembers a child who should have walked through the door.
Here, official language runs out. The government can call the strike strategic, a general can call it a legitimate target. None of this answers the simple and complex question of a parent: why didn't my child return from school? The UN conclusion makes this question even harder to ignore. The mission stated that the United States did not take feasible measures to verify whether the school in Minab was a military target, and concluded that the attack constitutes a war crime. The US government disputes such conclusions and has not publicly released the full results of its own investigation.
Thus, accountability cannot be limited to statements of regret or carefully chosen words. If international law matters, civilian lives cannot become secondary just because a powerful state apparatus dropped bombs. A school does not become a military target just because someone somewhere claimed otherwise. The burden lies with those who order and conduct the attack to distinguish between civilians and military targets.
Behind all the legal language is a painfully human question: who will answer the parents of Minab? Under the golden dome, the children did not allow memory to disappear. They stood where their classmates could not stand. They remembered the dead on the very first day of the school year. For one day, mourning became something more like a demand—that the world look directly at the events in Minab instead of looking for another reason to turn away.
And today, these children carried another message beyond the sanctuary. They took it home: resistance in our blood. We may be ready for sacrifices, but we are not ready to surrender. The chairs are still empty. But Minab has not fallen silent. Names continue to be spoken, families continue to ask questions, and those questions have now gone beyond Iran's borders.