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After a strike on a girls’ elementary school in Minab, Iran, killed at least 175 people, nearly all young schoolchildren, online reports spread disinformation about the attack, including claims that the Iranian government itself had bombed the school. Journalist Nilo Tabrizy describes how outside reporters have been able to verify the attack despite Iran’s internet blackout and says attempts are still being made to confirm whether the strike is attributable to the U.S. or to Israel.
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: It happened early Saturday morning. One of the first strikes of the U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran hit a girls’ school in Minab, in southern Iran. The death toll is now at least 175, most of them primary school girls. On Tuesday, thousands of people filled the streets of Minab for a mass funeral. The girls’ ages range from 7 to 12. Iran’s school week runs from Saturday to Thursday. When the missile hit the school on Saturday morning, the girls were in their morning session. After the strike, parents searched for their children among the dead.
PARENT: [translated] This is her math book, Mohanna Zari, first grade. This is her folder with her schoolwork, her homework here. What wrong has she done? Her color pencil box is still in her bag.
AMY GOODMAN: While Iran blamed Israel for the attack, neither Israel nor the United States has taken responsibility for the bombing. On Tuesday, the United Nations Human Rights Office urged the forces behind the attack on the girls’ school to investigate.
RAVINA SHAMDASANI: In Iran, the Iran Red Crescent Society reports put the death toll at 787. In the single deadliest and devastating incident, dozens of girls were reportedly killed and injured when their primary school in Minab in the south of the country was struck during the school day. The high commissioner calls for a prompt, impartial and thorough investigation into the circumstances of the attack. The onus is on the forces that carried out the attack to investigate it. We call on them to make public the findings and to ensure accountability and redress for the victims.
AMY GOODMAN: For more, we’re joined by investigative reporter Nilo Tabrizy. She’s worked extensively with open-source material to report on Iran for The Washington Post and The New York Times. She’s been tracking what she calls the information wars online over the school bombing. Her recent piece for New Lines Magazine is headlined “Investigation Debunks Claims IRGC Bombed Iranian School.” She joins us now in studio.
Welcome back to Democracy Now!, Nilo.
NILO TABRIZY: Hi, Amy.
AMY GOODMAN: Explain exactly what you understand took place. And it’s really hard right now with the internet almost totally turned off in Iran.
NILO TABRIZY: Yeah, absolutely. So, right now we’re not necessarily able to get in touch with eyewitnesses or, you know, friends and families of the young girls who were killed, but we were able to verify the video. So, there was one video that I saw probably around 6:30 a.m. Eastern Time on Saturday, and I was able to verify that and know that the video that we saw that showed at least, you know, half of the structure was hit. You know, two stories were torn down. The scene was really graphic. I saw things like a small child’s hand in the rubble, blood-stained backpacks, homework scattered everywhere. And so, when I see scenes like that, it’s important to verify and know that it’s from the current moment, so I was able to do that.
And then, once I found the location of the school itself, just being able to map, you know, some of the features we saw in the video with satellite imagery, I wanted to understand what was around there. You know, Minab is a small town in the southern Hormozgan province. I was trying to understand why the school was struck. What I saw, and what many others online saw, as well, is that it was close to an IRGC Navy barracks.
AMY GOODMAN: And explain what the IRGC is.
NILO TABRIZY: The IRGC is the Revolutionary Guard. So, there was an IRGC, you know, Navy barracks around there. And I wanted to, you know, understand: Is this an issue of wrong targeting? Once I looked at satellite imagery, it was clear that for — years ago, it used to be part of — you know, it looked like it was very close to the base, part of the base. As far back as 2016, it was completely walled off. There was a separation between that school and the IRGC Navy barracks. And, as well, the walls of the school were painted with these bright murals. So, obviously, if I can see as an open-source investigator that as far back as, you know, eight years ago, these brightly colored walls are visible, I know that this is not part of an IRGC base, and so should anybody that’s adding this to a target list.
AMY GOODMAN: You’ve reported that the pro-Pahlavi monarchy accounts have been spreading a narrative that this was a failed IRGC rocket. And explain what these forces are.
NILO TABRIZY: Yes. So, right now there’s — I think there’s a — people are trying to coopt a narrative or, you know, put forth what’s happening that feels convenient to the story that they want to push and the goals that they have. And right now it seems that any reporting on civilian casualties becomes a flashpoint. And there was one quite prominent user on X that tweeted out and said that this — that actually the Iranian state already took responsibility for the strike. So we started to look at that claim. The channel that they put forward was not an Iranian state official channel. It was a Telegram channel that’s a pro-monarchy channel. So, you can understand, OK, where this type of misinformation is starting to spread.
AMY GOODMAN: Talk about the response on the ground, this mass funeral that took place in Minab, and how the media is covering this around the world.
NILO TABRIZY: Yeah, I mean, many member — many journalists were quite horrified to see an attack like this. Right? The death toll is up to 175 people, many of them young schoolgirls. And right now I think people are trying to verify imagery of this. So, there were some claims saying, “Oh, this aerial imagery showing, you know, the small graves that were dug comes from a different image in Pakistan,” while there’s been a lot of great reporting, some by BBC, some by The New York Times, that have verified this aerial imagery and said that, no, indeed, this is of the current moment. This is for these funerals, as well. So, this is a incident that many of us are looking at, because it absolutely demands accountability.
AMY GOODMAN: And what has the U.S. and Iran said?
NILO TABRIZY: The U.S. said that it was looking into this incident. And Iran has said this was on the fault of Israel, this is what happens in an air campaign. And we’re still trying to figure that out. So, as it stands, we need more information. Either we need remnants of the weapons that was used from the scene. We haven’t been able to obtain that. Or what would — another visual clue that would be helpful is to see the moment of impact. If we saw the missile hit, we could maybe look at the angle where it comes from and get more information.
So we still don’t exactly who did what. Some of the claims coming out, as well, just about the general operation, have said that Israel is mostly responsible for Tehran, you know, western Iran strikes, and that the southern Iran strikes are being done by the U.S., which is why some reporters have gone to the U.S. and asked for answers.
AMY GOODMAN: UNESCO says, “The killing of pupils in a place dedicated to learning constitutes a grave violation of the protection afforded to schools under international humanitarian law.” Nilo?
NILO TABRIZY: Absolutely. I mean, this is not — you know, a school for young girls is absolutely not a viable nor is it a legal target, especially as we’re trying to still understand the aims of this type of operation. It doesn’t seem a legitimate target based on the information that we know at all. And it really calls in — you know, it highlights that no matter if there’s an air campaign, whether the objectives are understood or not, that civilians will always pay the price in these types of conflicts. And right now it’s the young girls in Minab.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to thank you, Nilo, for being with us, and ask you a final question. What most surprised you about this horrific attack?
NILO TABRIZY: I was surprised to see that people were trying to doubt it immediately, or saying that just because they’re civilian casualties, that’s an Islamic Republic talking point. No, these deaths happened. They’re important for us to investigate, and all of us should be interrogating what happened.
AMY GOODMAN: And can I ask you — you were with The Washington Post. We all know that The Washington Post has gutted its staff, laid off a third of the staff, almost the entire Middle East division. You should be doing this for The Washington Post. So, what’s happening without coverage?
NILO TABRIZY: Yeah, I mean, I would love to continue reporting this for the Post. That’s not what’s happening right now. I’m seeing my colleagues, that I deeply respect, that are still there, scrambling and trying to cover this important moment, but they’re not getting voices from inside Iran, and understandably. Connectivity is really difficult right now. That’s why you need reporters like myself, like my colleague Yeganeh, who was the bureau chief for Iran based in Turkey. That’s why this reporting is deeply important in this moment.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, thank you for doing it, Nilo Tabrizy, author, investigative journalist, who’s worked extensively with open-source material to report on Iran for The Washington Post and The New York Times. Her recent piece for New Lines Magazine, and we will link to it, is titled “Investigation Debunks Claims IRGC Bombed Iranian School.” We’ll link to it at democracynow.org. Back in a minute.
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