Comment on The worst and second worst time to enter into war. by dickie

Parent Post: The worst and second worst time to enter into war. · In Reply To

dickie · 10/1/2026, 3:57:47 AM · permalink

I went looking for a historical comparison to the Minab school strike.

It is harder to find one than I expected.

On Feb. 28, a girls’ elementary school in Minab, Iran, was struck during the opening U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran. [Amnesty International documented 156 people killed, including 120 children](<https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2026/03/usa-iran-those-responsible-for-deadly-and-unlawful-us-strike-on-school-that-killed-over-100-children-must-be-held-accountable/>). Its investigation found that the school building was directly struck with guided weapons.

I cannot establish that Minab was the deadliest military strike on a functioning school in history. Historical records and the circumstances of individual attacks are too different to make that claim responsibly.

But I have not found a modern example that closely matches it in both circumstances and number of children killed.

One of the closest is **Bahr el-Baqar, Egypt, in 1970**. Israeli aircraft bombed a primary school during the War of Attrition. Forty-six children eventually died. Israel disputed Egypt’s account of the target, while journalists who visited the site reported finding a destroyed school and no obvious military equipment. The incident was serious enough to become the subject of U.N. Security Council proceedings. [The U.N. Yearbook records the dispute and casualties here.](<https://www.un.org/unispal/document/auto-insert-199486/>)

Forty-six children.

Minab: 120.

There is another comparison that may be even more relevant to the question of U.S. accountability.

In **Mansourah, Syria, in 2017**, the U.S.-led coalition bombed a former boarding school being used to house displaced families. The coalition said it believed the building was an ISIS intelligence headquarters and weapons facility.

[Human Rights Watch investigated the site](<https://www.hrw.org/report/2017/09/25/all-feasible-precautions/civilian-casualties-anti-isis-coalition-airstrikes-syria>) and found substantial evidence that large numbers of civilians were living there.

The coalition initially maintained that no civilians had been harmed.

A U.N. commission later concluded that about **150 of roughly 200 people living in the school were killed**. [Human Rights Watch summarized those findings here.](<https://www.hrw.org/news/2018/03/09/year-fog-war-not-lifting-over-deadly-raqqa-strikes>)

More than a year after the attack, the coalition finally acknowledged that civilians had been killed, admitting to 40 deaths. [Human Rights Watch documented that reversal here.](<https://www.hrw.org/news/2018/07/05/overdue-us-admission-civilians-were-killed-syria-strike-still-insufficient>)

Mansourah was not a functioning school at the time. It was a school building being used as a civilian shelter. That makes it different from Minab.

But the accountability pattern is difficult to ignore.

A school building is bombed.

Outside investigators find large numbers of civilian casualties.

The initial military account does not match what investigators find on the ground.

Months pass before meaningful acknowledgment.

There are older examples too. In **1943**, a German bomber struck Sandhurst Road School in London, killing 38 children and six teachers. [The school still commemorates the victims.](<https://sandhurstprimary.lewisham.sch.uk/our-school/>)

That was during the Second World War, using 1940s bombing technology.

Minab happened in 2026 with modern precision-guided weapons.

That is what makes the comparison so disturbing.

This was not merely a tragic school casualty somewhere in the vicinity of a huge bombing campaign. Amnesty found that the school building itself was directly struck with guided weapons.

And seven months later, the United States still has not provided a satisfactory public accounting of why.

I cannot say Minab was the worst school bombing in history.

I can say that after looking for comparable state military attacks on functioning schools, **a strike killing 120 children appears historically exceptional**.

That deserves considerably more attention than it has received.

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