Iran's state media say 100 killed in strike on girls' school, but losses among the regime's leaders still lack transparency

Rescue workers and residents search through the rubble after the Israeli-American bombing of a girls' elementary school in Minab, Iran, February 28, 2026. ABBAS ZAKERI/MEHR NEWS AGENCY VIA AP

The body of a young girl, dressed in her school uniform and covered in blood; debris revealing the lifeless arm of a child; a pile of a dozen dust-covered school bags overflowing with notebooks. On Saturday, February 28, images depicting an attack on a girls' elementary school in Minab, in the southern Iranian province of Hormozgan, circulated on social media. Iran has attributed the strike to the American and Israeli allies. State media have indicated several different casualty counts, including one of 108 deaths, a figure announced Saturday evening by the Minab prosecutor to the Fars news agency. Despite the high toll, footage of victims remains scarce at this stage, even as photographs clearly show a crowd gathered around the targeted building.

As of Saturday evening, nearly 10 hours after the start of massive Israeli-American strikes on Iran, almost no information has emerged regarding the identity of members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) – the country's ideological military – or of political leaders who may have been targeted or killed in the strikes launched Saturday morning, Tehran time, by Israel and the United States.