You can't have a serious discussion of this bombing without addressing the information warfare component. To this day we don't know what actually happened. Between the general public and the facts, there are many middlemen, all with their own distorting factor: the IRGC; the US government; western press outlets such as the Guardian; and the people quoted by the press.
IRGC is making claims that no other party can verify first-hand. Everything from the number of explosions, the extent of the physical damage, the number of wounded and dead, the number of civilians wounded and dead - these are all unverified claims and should be treated as such. Not only is the IRGC obviously biased and incentivized to maximize media pressure on the US and Israel: they are known for information warfare of exactly this nature. To take their statements at face value, and present them as established facts in the opening paragraph, as this article does, is journalistic malpractice.
Again, the basic facts on the ground are not known, yes all parties are projecting narratives with a certainty that we should all be suspicious of.
Without this stable foundation of knowing what actually happened, and why, the very premise of this article collapses on itself.
EDIT: the flurry of responses to this post illustrate the problem. It's difficult to even have a respectful, fact-driven discussion on this topic, because everyone is tempted (and encouraged) to rush to their political battle stations. Nobody wants to discuss information warfare, because they're too busy engaging in it. I think that's worrying and problematic. No matter which "side" you're on, it should be possible to distinguish what is known and what is not; and implementing basic information hygiene. Or do you think you are uniquely immune to disinformation?
You're not wrong but what we can tell from open sources is:
- The building does seem to have actually been a school and "detached" from the rest of the military complex.
- The school the Iranians claim it was does seem to exist even if it's not 100% clear that's the identical location.
- At the time of the attack school would have been in session.
- The signature of the attack seems similar between all the buildings attacked and we have footage showing a Tomahawk hitting the area.
Another thing we can tell is that the US has to know the truth here and isn't coming out with an official statement.
And I'm saying this as someone who thinks the Iranian regime is evil, needs to be struck down, was trying to acquire nuclear weapons etc.
As to the numbers I agree they are to be treated with suspicion. The Iranians are obviously motivated to lie, inflate them, and treat all casualties as civilians. But we can still try and estimate given the size of the building what would be the number of students. We can also estimate the outcome of the missile hitting the building and correlate with the photos and satellite imagery, and until we have better data use those estimates.
I agree with all of that. My worry is that the Guardian article is not doing any of it, and in fact is damaging the framework for even having such a conversation.. Instead they are repeating IRGC statements without attribution, and establishing them as background truth in the first paragraph. Then building an entire article on that flawed premise. Essentially, their article exists in the narrative universe create by the IRGC. I find that incredibly worrying.
My bar for present day journalists and the Guardian specifically is pretty low. The goal for the Guardian is apparently to get clicks and advance their agenda. Journalism and real news reporting is apparently dead. My commentary is more on the specifics of the incident.
I'm not sure why the other reply here was flagged and killed. The US absolutely has NOT acknowledged that they killed school children. The DoW and other government officials have only publicly stated that an investigation is taking place.
This is incorrect. The US government (via Secretary Hegseth) has only confirmed that they are investigating the incident.
What the US has NOT confirmed:
- that they are responsible for the bombing
- who hit the school
- whether the school was an intended target of US strikes
- whether it was struck intentionally
- that it was mistaken for a military site
- any casualty count
- whether there were civilians or children in the casualty count
The US has explicitly DENIED:
- That they deliberately target civilian targets
These are the facts about what the US has actually confirmed. We are all entitled to our opinion of what happened. But we should be able to acknowledge that they are just that: opinions. We don't actually know what happened. And I find it scary and dangerous that so many people, on hacker news and elsewhere, are acting like they do.
> To this day we don't know what actually happened.
I feel like we know enough already. A school was bombed, the ones who did it sucks big time and should be held responsible. Currently, the US and Israel is waging a war against Iran, and one of them dropped the bomb(s), unless suddenly Iran got their hands on American weapons, then that needs to be investigated too, because someone surely dropped the ball at that point.
The basics remain the same, investigations have to be launched to figure out where exactly in the chain of command, someone made a mistake, and then hold that person(s) responsible for their fuck up.
I think it's likely that the explosion was caused by a US strike. But we don't actually know for sure that that's what happened - the US government has not confirmed it.
We also don't know anything about casualties - we only have the IRGC statements, and they are not reliable.
> Have those investigations been launched?
Yes, according to the US government, an investigation is underway. But its starting point is determining what caused the explosion.
How long does it take to look at the coordinates programmed into the cruise missiles? Or to review existing satellite imagery for the location and other intelligence sources?
If this was a school (which seems likely at this point) and if this was a US TLAM that hit it (which also seems likely at this point) then we should expect a lot of casualties when it's hit during school time (which also seems likely). And yes, we shouldn't trust what the IRGC is saying.
I think I'm on your side but in this case the correct course of action for the US would have been to quickly own up to the mistake. There is really not a lot of ambiguity here. This doesn't seem to be a case like "shots were fired from the school window" or some sort of dual use with IRGC having offices in the school. If there was a reason for the targeting then presumably we'd have a statement about it already.
Mistakes can be made and are always made in war. Leaving this open like this is damaging to the war effort.
What have they done to deserve your trust? They started a war that they deny is a war. They told us a year ago they set Iran back a decade. Then they tell us 9 months later they're weeks from a nuclear bomb. I wouldn't trust the warmongers to admit they're child killers.
I haven't said anything about trusting them. I am simply correcting statements about what the US has supposedly "admitted".
It's one thing to say "I think the US did XYZ".
It's quite another to say "It is an objective truth that the US did XYZ, in fact they even admitted it".
Transposed to the Guardian, if they want to write "we think the US did XYZ", they should clearly frame it as an opinion piece. Instead they are writing "it is an objective truth that the US did XYZ" - which is false. That is journalistic malpractice.
It would be journalistic malpractice to avoid reporting on anything that the government does that the government isn't willing to admit publically to doing. It's possible to ascertain facts, even of the actions of the US government, to a level of certainty sufficient to report them as facts, even when the government disputes the facts.
Repeating the IRGC claim that "American forces killed between 175 and 180 people, most of them girls between the ages of seven and 12" without attribution or scrutiny, is not "reporting".
It's fine to be skeptical of the claims of the US government. But the IRGC is also a government - more specifically a totalitarian government built on lies and aggression. To distrust the former while blindly trusting the latter is inconsistent and foolish.
Are you familiar with the Al-Ahli hospital incident in Gaza? We've been through this sort of circus before... Those of us who paid attention learned to not rush to conclusions, and never, ever trust social media or the western press to overcome or even understand information warfare.
> Are you familiar with the Al-Ahli hospital incident in Gaza?
I am not
> Those of us who paid attention learned to not rush to conclusions, and never, ever trust social media or the western press to overcome or even understand information warfare.
Since you highlight western press can't be trusted to overcome / understand information warfare, would you care to provide some write-ups detailing the viewpoints you hint at, in the context of this Al-Ahli hospital incident?
The Al-Ahli hospital, the one that Israel tried to say was a PIJ missile that misfired?
The Israeli propaganda was false in that case, and they probably hit the hospital. The PIJ missiles' ballistic trajectory did not match with the hospital, and most or all their fuel had burned [1]. I recommend you read the whole text, it's quite short.
But I don't see what you mean here, if the takeaway from Al-Ahli is not to trust the US/Israel when they shift the blame for hitting civilian targets... then applying that lesson here means that we should not trust the US/Israel when they try to shift the blame in this case. The US hit the school. That much is beginning to be obvious.
Congratulations, you found the one fringe publication that contradicts the overwhelming consensus from OSINT and official investigations alike. You wanted so badly Israel to be responsible, that you decided to trust the least credible source possible.
Least credible? Fringe? Forensic Architecture is a very respected source that has done in-depth technical analysis of many, many accidents and incidents, e.g. the Beirut port explosion. Articles from Forensic Architecture are often featured on HN.
It received the Peabody award in 2021. It received the Right Livelihood award in 2024. It is a research unit under the university of London. Its reports have been used as evidence in cases in the Israeli supreme court and in the UN. The project has gotten numerous grants from the European research council, collaborated with Bellingcat, Amnesty international, and ACLED [1]
Your kneejerk reaction to information that contradicts your priors is obvious. If you had bothered to do even a small google search you could have checked what FA actually is, rather than just lash out.
You haven't addressed the fact that the overwhelming OSINT consensus contradicts their claim, making it fringe by definition.
I am very familiar with FA, and with that particular paper. That's the thing with echo chambers: the people inside of it are all repeating the same exact talking points, drawing from the same narrow set of "approved" sources. And in the case of Al-ahli, the set is very, very narrow, so it gets repeated a lot.
Al-ahli is the ultimate test, because the evidence is so one-sided. If you can convince yourself, against overwhelming evidence, that Israel is still responsible - then you can convince yourself of anything.
You have not presented any evidence, you're just claiming there is a consensus, and that it's foolproof. Please stop the posturing and produce something. As it is your post contains zero information content.
Afaik, the cause of the explosion has not been conclusively shown by anyone, and it is still contested. But FA has presented the most detailed analysis of all.
You're also painting with vey broad strokes, making claims about me picking from a narrow set of sources. Based on what? Vibes? Why don't you throw out some more accusations while you're at it.
If you're familiar with FA, then your claim that they are not credible is very strange indeed. Because they are very thorough in their analysis, and known for it. It seems you have some very strong ideological reasons not to like the conclusions they come to.
> making claims about me picking from a narrow set of sources. Based on what?
Based on the fact that you only provided one source? I did find two more sources that corroborate your claim that Israel is responsible: Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad...
> Because they are very thorough in their analysis, and known for it. It seems you have some very strong ideological reasons not to like the conclusions they come to.
Hamas and PIJ are ridiculous sources to use in this case, I will not use them.
Equally ridiculous is to use the IDF or the Biden admin as sources. They are also party to the war.
Using Canadian and French government sources is less ridiculous, but they are still aligned with Israel, and therefore have a motive to side with the IDF. HRW and Bellingcat are good sources on this front. The WSJ is an ok source.
Please show your work. You should open up what the sources actually say. Simply dumping documents on someone is not a good way to argue. You're making me do your work for you.
US govt source
- party to the war
- no analysis shared
Canadian govt
- no analysis shared
- state that evidence is inconclusive, but points to rocket from within Gaza
French govt (anonymous French official)
- state that evidence is inconclusive, but size points to rocket from within Gaza
IDF
- party to the war, unreliable source
- identifies the PIJ missiles are responsible, the same ones that FA showed were not
HRW
- extensive text, first serious source in your list
- argues that the fire damage is consistent with rocket fuel burning up
- notes that a misfire may be the cause of that
- argues that the size of the blast is inconsistent with the larger IDF bombs
- does not conclude anything, but draws partial conclusions that are consistent with a misfire
- notes that the IDF hit the same hospital three days earlier with a missile
- notes that the IDF was hitting targets near the hospital at the time of the explosion
WSJ
- Shows footage of a rocket exploding in the air, claims this is a misfired rocket that explodes in the air and falls in the hospital parking lot
- The NYT [2] shows that the videos of the rocket exploding in the air are unrelated
- The HRW source also seems to comment on these videos (they could be other similar videos, they don't identify them), saying they are unrelated Israeli interceptors
Bellingcat
- reports that an impact crater has been identified
- reports what the IDF has commented on it
- no conclusion
Let me add one source, for now, since this list is quite long.
NYT source [1]
- discounts the video evidence used by the WSJ source (much like HRW)
- notes that the IDF hit the same hospital three days earlier with a missile
- notes that the IDF was hitting targets near the hospital at the time of the explosion
> And what conclusions would that be?
The evidence is inconclusive. Which FA also states. It is still unclear where the particular rocket that hit this hospital came from. Israel targeted and destroyed many other hospitals in Gaza during the genocide, so that is not unlikely. Rockets from Gaza do also misfire, and it is also possible that that was the cause, just not any of the rockets that have been identified. FA has also shown that the impact crater features are consistent with the rocket travelling from the direction of Israeli positions.
What is clear is that you are mischaracterizing your position as an "OSINT consensus". There is no consensus, and nobody who isn't the IDF has made a conclusive statement about who is at fault. Also claiming I use a narrow set of sources because I only cite the clearest one is simply mischaracterization. It's bad faith argument.
The point was that the particular claim that Israel made, the one about a PIJ rocket, has been discounted. Which was my original point. The IDF has lied through its teeth through all conflicts its been in (then later revised its statements quietly). About the death toll in Gaza. About the ambulance crew that was massacred. About not purposefully targeting civilian infrastructure.
The IDF and the Israeli government lie about their acts of war constantly and cannot be trusted. The same is true for the US government.
>> Again, the basic facts on the ground are not known
Think for a second WHY that is! They can find and kill the Iranian leaders who will be doing the utmost to conceal their location and yet that can't tell us whose bomb blew up a specific building? Of course they can. They're waiting until people forget and they can final release the result of their 'investigation'.
But I'm noticing that you are only interested in guessing the motives and actions of the US.
Does the IRGC not have motives and agency of their own? Perhaps the explosion was caused by a malfunction of their own missile? Perhaps they lied about children being present? Perhaps they intentionally placed children in a location they knew would be struck? Based on their incentives, doctrine and past behavior, you could make a reasonable case for all of those scenarios.
It's fine to speculate on who did what, and why. But that methodology can be applied in both directions, not just the one that suites your political preference.
I think its fair to treat things that the Trump administration and the Iranian military agree on as facts. If they were distortions that favored one side, we would see pushback from the other. Maybe there are distortions that somehow benefit both of these parties, but it seems unlikely. At minimum, then, this was a school, the Americans bombed it, and children died as a result.
> An ongoing [United States] military investigation has determined that the United States is responsible for a deadly Tomahawk missile strike on an Iranian elementary school, according to U.S. officials and others familiar with the preliminary findings.
That article is based on anonymous sources ("according to [people] familiar with the preliminary findings").
It doesn't mean it's wrong, but it's not an official confirmation by the US government, and it only speaks to the responsibility of the strike, not the various claims of "killed children".
Those sources don't say anything about casualties, or the presence of children. The NYT does its best to make it sound like they do ("responsible for a deadly strike"), but so far the only source for how deadly it is, remains the IRGC. And the NYT happily quotes their claim that the death toll was "at least 175 people".
For what it's worth, I personally believe the US is responsible for the strike. I also think the IRGC is lying about casualties, but there's no way to know for sure, and a US investigation probably won't tell us more on that point.
You’re acting like the U.S. government is a monolithic good faith actor right now. The current administration’s behavior is qualitatively different than past administrations.
Do you also believe this administration will ever officially confirm Renee Good and Alex Pretti were not domestic terrorists?
It’s hard to interpret your points charitably here.
Nobody in the western world cares about either group of dead civilians. They only pretend to care because they think it might benefit their preferred tribe of politicians.
I feel like an intellectual god to have been gifted the brain power to recognize that 150 kids being killed is a awful tragedy, and that converting a building on a military base to a school is recklessly stupid and borderline purposely done as a trap. It's like letting your child play in the road at night, and then being upset when a drunk driver hits them.
Anyone can look at the satellite images from the bombing and see how ridiculous whatever Iran was doing was.[1]
"I understand that the officer killed your unarmed teen son. But you have to understand, in the dark, he appeared to be reaching for a weapon, and the officer feared for his life."
"It's a tragedy that she was raped. But you have to understand, the way she was dressed, she clearly wanted it, she was sending mixed signals, you see."
Anyway. Here's a preschool right next to a military base, it took me about 3 minutes of scrolling around on google maps to find this.
Because the US military publishes maps of the base. Anyone who bombs a school on a US military base is doing it intentionally. China could probably call up the DoD and ask for maps of every base, and they would get it.
If your force your enemy to decide what is and isn't a civilian target, you are the deranged one.
I'm just gonna assume you are an American, just because this is a website who's audience is in large part American. But I might be wrong. Anyway, as such you must at least in passing be familiar with the concept of a "military base" as it is practiced by American society.
> Everything that the average family needs is there; a grocery store, shopping mall, bank, post office, theatre, religious centers, outdoor activities, community center, clubs, dining facilities, gas station, quick stop markets, and, if not a full size hospital, medical clinics. The majority of bases do not have schools physically located on the installation, but the children are educated in the neighboring school systems.
I just googled that so I don't have to write the text myself.
So while you might be technically correct about schools, do you think housing on a military base for personnel and their families is akin to playing on the road at night ?
> I feel like an intellectual god
HN rules prevent me from writing anything snarky here.
Yes, you are correct. Military bases even have schools and kids!
But do you know what else the US does?
The locations of military and non-military buildings is public information, and even intentionally made obvious to anyone. You can get maps of the bases from their websites. You can even go on google maps and see what most of the buildings are. To avoid exactly this situation. And even beyond all that, in the event of military escalation where their is real threat of the bases being hit, the civilians would be evacuated anyway.
(Legitimate) countries at war aren't trying to massacre civilians. They all agreed to that and all take agreed upon steps to stop it. Like at the most basic level issuing uniforms to soldiers so you can clearly see who is a civilian and who is a fighter.
I can assure you that in a war between the US and China, there would be dramatically fewer civilian deaths, because both countries don't fuck around with "military/civilian ambiguity" as a war tactic. Because you or your enemy end up killing a bunch of innocents.
Are you trying to tell me that you believe that the Iranians were under the impression that this school was a secret that the United States did not know about ?
Do you believe that these military buildings were a secret that the Iranians thought the US and Israel don't know about ?
> (Legitimate) countries at war aren't trying to massacre civilians.
You think Israel is not a legitimate country? Cause that just very openly happened and continues to happen.
And maybe you think that killing civilians is not the point, which I don't agree with but I can at least understand why one would come to that conclusion.
But you must at least remember that the US is kind of famous for Hiroshima and Nagasaki - an action based almost in it's entirety on killing civilians.
But even if you want to only defend that "legitimate" countries aren't trying to massacre civilians, you must be able to see that the threshold of killing them if they just happen to be in the way is very low.
The Secretary of Defense of the US recently called for removal of all these rules you alluded to
> We also don't fight with stupid rules of engagement.
Look at what is happening even with this lose framework you are referring to in place. Do you think if China invaded the US, the US would not do everything it takes to defeat them, even if it means giving up conventional warfare. You think the US forces would give up a strategic advantage that could be gained by taking off their uniform and continue fighting without it ?
You don't seem aware that Japan armed and trained it's population (Kokumin Giyū Sentōtai), men and women including kids, and mandated them to attack invaders. Another example of deranged theocratic dictatorship. The US doing a land invasion would have almost certainly resulted in far more "civilian" deaths.
Also the Geneva conventions don't apply when fighting an enemy who doesn't abide by them. Its incredibly annoying to fight an enemy that has no problem using ambulances as troop and weapon transports. Or an enemy that refuses to issue uniforms to it's fighters. This isn't even necessarily referring to Israel and Hamas, it was rampant with al qaeda and ISIS.
As for China invading the US? Well Ukraine has managed to keep it above board. It's only these shit head theocratic lunatics that have no problem shoveling civilians into the fire to keep their ass in power. Maybe you aren't aware, but Hamas consoles it's civilians by telling them they are dying for God. Just like Japan trained it's civilians during WWII to die for God (who happened to be the emperor.)
Sure, the easiest way out of your dilemma is to just declare everyone killed to not be a civilian, and define every enemy to be out of scope of any restraint.
By that metric there are never any dead civilians and no rules apply.
Kinda sounds as if you are looking for excuses to make these rules you yourself brought up not apply to any real situation.
I really, really wanted to avoid making fun of of your "gifted brain power".
Your argument is so lazy, I am starting to doubt your godlike intellect.
Uh no, the onus is always on the one doing the attack FFS what's wrong with you?
You are bending over backwards to shift the blame away from an administration that was utterly negligent and reckless and caused an obvious and expected outcome of having "No rules of engagement"
You don't get to blow up a school and say "But a decade ago it was part of the military base!". That's Russia's SOP
It's stupid, lazy, unacceptable, and indefensible in a war of choice. This administration had years to vet targets, and instead eschewed all preparation and fired the people who had been working on preparation.
IRGC is making claims that no other party can verify first-hand. Everything from the number of explosions, the extent of the physical damage, the number of wounded and dead, the number of civilians wounded and dead - these are all unverified claims and should be treated as such. Not only is the IRGC obviously biased and incentivized to maximize media pressure on the US and Israel: they are known for information warfare of exactly this nature. To take their statements at face value, and present them as established facts in the opening paragraph, as this article does, is journalistic malpractice.
Again, the basic facts on the ground are not known, yes all parties are projecting narratives with a certainty that we should all be suspicious of.
Without this stable foundation of knowing what actually happened, and why, the very premise of this article collapses on itself.
EDIT: the flurry of responses to this post illustrate the problem. It's difficult to even have a respectful, fact-driven discussion on this topic, because everyone is tempted (and encouraged) to rush to their political battle stations. Nobody wants to discuss information warfare, because they're too busy engaging in it. I think that's worrying and problematic. No matter which "side" you're on, it should be possible to distinguish what is known and what is not; and implementing basic information hygiene. Or do you think you are uniquely immune to disinformation?