Six Months On, Iranian Families Mourn at School Hit by US Strike

In the southern Iranian city of Minab, the Shajareh Tayyebeh school has become a nightly gathering place for grief. Six months after a US airstrike on the first day of the war, relatives still sit among the rubble, searching for traces of the dead and trying to make sense of the tragedy.

Heydar Sadeghi, who lost his 11-year-old grandson Hami and daughter-in-law Neda Salehizadeh, a teacher, is a constant presence on a bench near the shattered building. He recalls the morning of February 28, when he dropped them off as usual, planning to return at 1 PM. “But the bell was rung early — by Trump,” he said, describing the moment the strike upended their lives.

Sadeghi described the chaotic aftermath, rushing to the school after hearing the explosion and finding a scene of unimaginable horror. “I went into the schoolyard and saw hands, feet, and heads scattered across the ground,” he recounted, weeping. He called out for his grandchildren, but they were not among the few intact bodies he could find.

Other families share similar stories of loss and unanswered questions. Ayeh Zakeri, whose son Reza Barani was killed, spoke of her desperate hope that he had gone to football practice instead. She was forced to leave before his body was found, only later seeing his bloodstained backpack brought home by his father.

Fatemeh Barani, mother of teacher Nasim Neyestani, recounted how her daughter stayed with eight students whose parents could not reach the school in time during Ramadan. “Before anyone could reach them, the missile struck. My daughter was martyred along with the eight children,” she said.

City council member Jaber Paritaghinezhad noted that the search for remains is ongoing. “After over 190 days, the guys are still searching and a lot of work still needs to be done,” he said, pointing to recovered hair belonging to a victim.

Iranian state media have reported that 168 people were killed in the strike, most of them children. The US administration has not yet released findings of a Pentagon investigation or directly accepted blame for the attack, leaving families in Minab to grapple with their loss without closure.