Satellite imagery, expert analysis, a U.S. official and information released by the American and Israeli militaries indicate a Feb. 28 blast that killed more than 165 people at an Iranian elementary school was likely caused by U.S. airstrikes, the Associated Press reported Friday. Most of those killed at Shajareh Tayyebeh Elementary School in Minab — a city in Hormozgan Province about 1,100 kilometers (680 miles) southeast of Tehran — were children. The strike had the highest reported civilian death toll since the war with Iran began.

The findings place the United States at the center of an incident that drew condemnation from the United Nations, international human rights groups, and legal experts who say that striking a school violates international law regardless of its proximity to a military compound.

Satellite imagery and expert analysis

Satellite images reviewed by the AP show most of the school reduced to rubble, a crescent shape punched into its roof. The images also show at least five buildings in an adjacent Revolutionary Guard compound struck, leaving the area with craters, charred holes in roofs and piles of rubble.

Three experts told the AP the imagery and videos from the scene strongly suggested multiple munitions hit the compound.

“All the strikes are clustered within the walled-off compound,” said Corey Scher, a researcher who uses satellite imagery and radar data to study landscape changes in armed conflict zones. “That’s one level of precision at the block level. And then most of the strikes are basically leading to direct hits on buildings. That’s another level of precision.”

Scher said the school and other buildings struck in the compound showed damage consistent with the use of air-to-surface munitions.

Sean Moorhouse, a former British Army officer and explosive ordnance disposal expert, said the visible damage was consistent with what would be expected from impacts from multiple 2,000-pound (900-kilogram) high-explosive warheads, while noting that the available satellite imagery was insufficient to determine the exact munition type.

N.R. Jenzen-Jones, director of Armament Research Services, said the school and compound were targeted with “multiple simultaneous or near-simultaneous strikes.”

“If indeed it is confirmed that an American or Israeli strike hit the school, there are several potential points of failure in the targeting cycle,” Jenzen-Jones said. “We might be seeing an intelligence failure, likely rather early in the process, which misidentified the target or failed to update a targeting list following the building’s change in use.”

Factors pointing to U.S. responsibility

Several factors point to a U.S. strike, the AP reported.

The Pentagon launched an assessment of the incident — a process that, under its own protocols for mitigating civilian harm, is triggered after investigators make an initial determination that the U.S. military may bear culpability. A U.S. official told the AP the strike was likely American. The official spoke anonymously because they were not authorized to comment publicly on the matter.

Israel denied conducting the strike. Israeli forces have focused on areas of Iran closer to Israel and have not reported any strikes south of Isfahan, about 800 kilometers (500 miles) from the school. The U.S. operates warships in the Arabian Sea — including the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier — within range of Minab.

The school sits adjacent to a walled compound labeled on maps as the Seyyed Al-Shohada Cultural Complex of the Revolutionary Guard. Iranian online map applications show living quarters for the Assef Brigades about 150 meters (165 yards) from the school, inside the compound. The 16th Assef Coastal Missile Group is part of the Guard’s navy and is responsible for the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through which a fifth of all traded oil and natural gas passes.

Farzin Nadimi, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy who studies Iran’s military, said the school likely taught daughters of Guard personnel.

“My assumption is that probably there were some activities recently there and they detected and tracked them, but … they weren’t aware or didn’t have an up-to-date database that a girls’ school was there and they bombed it,” Nadimi said.

U.S. officials decline to detail findings

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told reporters at a Pentagon media briefing: “All I can say is that we’re investigating that. We, of course, never target civilian targets. But we’re taking a look and investigating that.”

U.S. military Central Command spokesperson Capt. Tim Hawkins said: “It would be inappropriate to comment given the incident is under investigation.”

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters she had no updates on the investigation and did not directly answer a question about whether President Donald Trump was satisfied with the pace of the probe.

Elise Baker, a senior staff lawyer at the Atlantic Council, said targeting the school violated international laws governing armed conflict.

“Strikes can only legally target military objectives and combatants, but the school was a civilian object and the students and teachers were civilians,” Baker said. “The school’s proximity to (Guard) facilities and the attendance of children of (Guard) members at the school does not change that conclusion: It was a civilian object.”

The strike drew condemnation from the U.N. secretary-general and international human rights groups. Ravina Shamdasani, a spokesperson for the U.N. Human Rights Office, said investigation results needed to be made public.

“The families of the little girls who were killed are entitled to the truth of how this happened,” she said.

Reports also indicate that airstrikes hit other schools in Iran during the ongoing conflict. No independent agency has reached the site to investigate; Iran has not allowed outside access during the war.