Minab School Children Memorial

This page is written in memory of the innocent children and teachers of Shajareh Tayebeh School in Minab; for the girls and boys who left home on an ordinary morning with their backpacks, notebooks, and pencils, but never returned.

On February 28, 2026, the United States and Israel launched a new war against Iran, less than a year after the 12-day war of June 2025. In both cases, Iran was on the path of negotiation and diplomacy. In both cases, while talks were still ongoing and a political solution was still on the table, the response came not through dialogue, but through missiles and bombs.

Shajareh Tayebeh School in Minab was struck during school hours by an American Tomahawk missile. Not by a stray missile lost in the sky, but through a multi-stage attack: the first strike, then the strikes that followed. What is known in the language of war as a double-tap, or even a triple-tap: striking again while some children were still breathing under the rubble, while parents were running toward the school, while teachers were still trying to save their students.

Any explanation given after such a crime is already too late.

If they say it was an intelligence failure, then one must ask: how did the most advanced military in the world fail to distinguish an active school from a military target? A Tomahawk missile is not fired blindly into the darkness. It is a precise, long-range, guided weapon made by the United States; supported by data, maps, sensors, guidance systems, and the ability to correct its course.

If they say it was a system error or an artificial intelligence failure, that changes nothing. An attack at this level is not the result of a momentary decision or the raw output of an algorithm. It involves a chain of intelligence gathering, satellite and drone imagery analysis, target confirmation, operational planning, and authorization to fire. Modern guided missiles do not move toward a point without targeting data, flight paths, and operational approvals. So blaming a tragedy like this on “AI error” or “system failure” sounds less like a real explanation and more like an attempt to hide human responsibility. If the result of all this technology, surveillance, and claimed precision is a missile striking a school and killing children, then what is called into question is not only a system, but the entire decision-making process and the very claim of a “precision strike”.

And if they claim there was a military target near the school, the answer remains clear: no target, however important they may describe it, can justify killing children and destroying a school. Under international humanitarian law, children, teachers, and schools must be protected. This is the same argument Israel has used for years to attack Gaza; under the pretext of targeting security or military forces, it bombs homes, hospitals, schools, and civilian shelters. Each time, they say a military target was present or hidden there. But the result is always the same: children are killed, families are left grieving, and entire neighborhoods are turned into piles of rubble. #FreePalestine

This war was justified with names like “regime change,” “freedom for the Iranian people,” or “eliminating the nuclear threat.” But a freedom that begins with the killing of children is not freedom.

Freedom does not arrive by missiles and bombs.

The path to freedom does not pass over the bodies of schoolgirls.

And a world that stays silent in the face of children’s deaths is not merely a spectator; it is part of the same cruelty. Though this world has remained silent for years in the face of Israel’s crimes against the children and people of Gaza, as if it has been trained to watch children die.

But the real reason for this war was not freedom, not security, and not the people of Iran.

Behind this war stands the same “Epstein class”: a network of politicians, billionaires, lobbyists, and war contractors who profit from crisis, war, and the suffering of nations, while never paying the price themselves.

They speak of freedom and human rights, but the result of their decisions is sanctions, bombings, and the death of children. At the center of this crime stand Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu; men who once again showed that for their political goals, the lives of children and civilians have no value.

And most painful of all were those Iranians, inside or outside the country, who under whatever name or flag called for a military attack on their own homeland; those who looked to “Uncle Trump” for salvation, those who celebrated in the first hours of the war, those who imagined that bombing cities, collapsing a few buildings, killing a few commanders, or even assassinating the leader of Iran — a man they had called a “dictator” for years — meant freedom was near. But the death of a leader, any leader, regardless of how one judges him, is neither a license for war nor a guarantee of freedom. History has shown again and again that foreign missiles do not bring democracy. What they bring is destruction, instability, and the suffering of people who had no role in the decisions of warmongers.

The tragedy of Minab is itself the answer to that group of Iranians.

When a schoolchild lies under the rubble, when a missile hits a classroom, when mothers search through dust and debris for their child’s shoe and backpack, no hatred of a government, no political disagreement, no slogan, and no promise from Trump or anyone else has any meaning left.

The tragedy of Minab showed that the dream of overthrow through war and bombing brings nothing to the people of Iran but destruction and blood; and the hopes of those who placed their faith in foreign attack were buried under the rubble of the very crime they supported.

Behind all the slogans and excuses, the hostility of the United States and Israel toward Iran ultimately comes down to a simple logic: a country that refuses to submit to their demands must be put under pressure; a nation that wishes to remain independent must face sanctions, threats, and isolation; and a resistance that cannot be broken must have heavy costs imposed on its people — costs that sometimes even sacrifice innocent children.

No matter how many bombs you drop on us, we will not surrender. With the logic we have learned from the school of Imam Hussain, peace be upon him, we cannot be defeated through threats and force. If we live, we have stood firm and we are victorious. And if we give our lives on this path, we have attained martyrdom, and even then we have not been defeated. As Sayyid al-Shuhada, Imam Hussain, peace be upon him, said: “Hayhat minna al-dhilla” — far from us is humiliation.

This page is for them.

For the children who will no longer write their homework.

For the teachers whose final lesson was protecting the lives of their students.

For the parents who sent their children to school in the morning with hope, and returned home at dusk with nothing but grief and sorrow.

With hope in the promised savior, Imam Mahdi, may Allah hasten his reappearance.

He will come, and the accounts of all the oppressed will be settled, and the era of tyrants will come to an end. There is no escape from that day.