New satellite imagery shows strikes hit at least seven buildings around an Iranian school where the country's government said more than 150 mostly young girls were killed last Saturday.
Funerals have been held for some of the people, including children, killed when the Shajereh Tayyebeh school was hit in the coastal city of Minab, according to state media.
ABC NEWS Verify has not been able to independently confirm the number of deaths.
Many of the victims were school-aged girls between seven and 12 years old, according to state-aligned media. They were buried in a mass funeral on Tuesday.
ABC NEWS Verify has analysed satellite imagery, videos from witnesses, and conflicting accounts on social media to investigate what happened.
School next to military complex
Minab is close to the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow shipping route between the countries of Iran and Oman.
Areas in Iran's southern region, like nearby Bandar Abbas, have been the target of multiple US-Israeli strikes since the conflict began. Strikes have hit radar and naval facilities.
The school appears to sit next door to the Sayyid al-Shuhada-Asif military complex. Both are surrounded by walls.
The complex was outlined more than five years ago on the website Open Street Map, where open source intelligence researchers and contributors marked the space as military usage.
On the same block is the Sayyid al-Shuhada Cultural Complex of the Revolutionary Guard, a gymnasium.
On three corners of the complex, imagery also shows established buildings that are smaller than the surrounding buildings.
They appear to be guard posts.
New satellite imagery provided by Planet Labs shows the area before and after the strikes.
The image — taken on March 4 — shows damage to at least eight buildings, including the school.
Google Earth satellite imagery shows between 2013 and 2016 a wall was put up to separate the school from the barracks.
The 2013 satellite imagery also shows a guard tower on the corner of the site.
By 2016, that tower is removed.
Misinformation
The bombing was first reported at around 10:45am local time on Saturday, provincial governor Mohammad Ashouri told state-aligned Tasnim News.
In Iran, school weeks are Saturday to Thursday.
In social media posts and comments, accounts have made the claim the school was hit by a "failed rocket launch" by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard using an image of an apparent white rocket trail falling from the sky.
ABC NEWS Verify has geolocated the photo to Zanjan province in Iran, almost 1,300 kilometres away.
The video below, taken in the aftermath of the school being hit, shows smoke rising from the roof of a building next door.
It also shows the walls around the school that were built after 2013.
It is unclear if the school and the military sites were hit at exactly the same time.
Claims and counterclaims
In a letter to Iranian news agency SNN, Iran's president Masoud Pezeshkian called the incident a "cowardly" and "barbaric" attack.
"This … is another black page in the record of countless crimes committed by the aggressors on this land that will never be erased from the historical memory of our nation," the president said.
Israeli Defense Force lieutenant colonel Nadav Shoshani told reporters he was not aware of an "Israeli or an American strike" in Minab.
"We're operating in an extremely accurate manner," he said.
In a press conference on Thursday, US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said the US was "investigating" the circumstances of the bombing.
"We of course never target civilian targets, but we're taking a look at investigating that," he said.
Earlier, a US Central Command spokesperson was quoted by The New York Times as saying: "We are aware of reports concerning civilian harm resulting from ongoing military operations. We take these reports seriously and are looking into them."
"The protection of civilians is of utmost importance and we will continue to take all precautions available to minimise the risk of unintended harm," the spokesperson said.
