President Donald Trump’s new offensive on Iran has killed dozens of students from a girls’ elementary school, according to the country’s state news agency.
The U.S. and Israel launched combined attacks across Iran on Saturday morning after Trump had teased conflict in the region for months. A direct hit on the Shajareye Tayabeh girls’ school in Minab, Hormozgan Province, killed at least 43 students, with 63 others wounded, the Islamic Republic News Agency reported.
The report was picked up by The New York Times, the Associated Press, and other news outlets.
The school week in Iran runs from Saturday through Thursday. Students in Iranian elementary schools, which are known as Dabestan, are typically 6 to 12 years old.
IRNA reported that the strike that hit the school was launched by Israel. The operation was confirmed by Minab’s provincial governor, Mohammad Radmehr, IRNA added. Radmehr said rescue and aid operations were underway at the school.
IRNA said the students had been “martyred.” Footage being circulated online purporting to show the scene of the strike shows the scale of the devastation, with a building, apparently the school, in ruins. Wailing can be heard in the haunting clips.
Trump, in a pre-recorded address to the nation at 3 a.m. Saturday, warned Iran that the U.S. was going to “destroy their missiles and raze their missile industry to the ground.”
His justification for what the administration is calling “Operation Epic Fury” is that Iran is building Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles and nuclear weapons. Experts and Trump’s own intelligence agencies debate the veracity of that claim.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Beast.
