Gharibabadi: Strikes on school in Minab and sports center in Lamerd were “a clear war crime, not an operational error”

February’s missile strikes on an elementary school in Minab and a sports center in Lamerd were “a clear war crime, not an operational error,” Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister for Legal and International Affairs, Kazem Gharibabadi, said on Friday, according to an Al Jazeera update.

The statement came a day after a UN fact-finding mission in Iran said there were “reasonable grounds” to believe the United States was behind the two military strikes on the school and the sports center in February, and that they constitute war crimes.

“History will not forget; in Minab, a school was painted with the blood of 168 children,” Gharibabadi said, referring to the fatal attack on the elementary school in the southern Iranian city.

U.S. officials have previously said military operations are conducted in accordance with the law of armed conflict, while President Donald Trump said in June that “nobody” had deliberately attacked a girls’ school in Iran in February. The Pentagon has elevated its internal investigation but has yet to publish any findings.

Source: Al Jazeera