USIsraeli attack on Minab school was a calculated massacre Araghchi tells UNHRC

US-Israeli attack on Minab school was a ‘calculated’ massacre, Araghchi tells UNHRC

In an urgent address before the 61st session of the UN Human Rights Council on Friday, Iran’s Foreign Minister Seyyed Abbas Araghchi said the United States and Israel had committed “atrocity crimes” and “genocide” during their bombing campaign against the country in the past 27 days. He specifically cited the attack on a girls’ elementary school in Minab as a deliberate war crime.

Speaking during an urgent debate on the protection of children and educational institutions in armed conflicts, Araghchi described the assault on the Shajareh Tayyebeh Girls’ School on February 28 as the “visible tip of a far bigger iceberg.”

“This cruel attack is but the visible tip of a far bigger iceberg—one that conceals beneath its surface far graver catastrophes,” Araghchi told delegates. “Targeting Shajare Tayyebeh School was a war crime and a crime against humanity—one that demands unequivocal condemnation by all and unambiguous accountability for the culprits.”

The diplomat detailed that more than 175 students and teachers were “slaughtered in cold blood” in a “calculated, phased assault” on the school in the southern city of Minab. He noted that given the advanced technological and surveillance capabilities of the U.S. and Israeli militaries, the strike could not be dismissed as a miscalculation.

“At a time when the American-Israeli aggressors, in their own assertions, possess the most advanced technologies, and the highest-precision military and data systems, no one can believe that the attack on the school was anything other than deliberate and intentional,” Araghchi said.

The minister warned that the Minab school massacre was not an isolated incident but part of a broader strategy of “systematic” violations. He said that since the onset of the current war on February 28, over 600 schools have been demolished or damaged across Iran, and more than 1,000 students and teachers have been killed or wounded.

“The aggressors, who are arrogantly shouting ‘no mercy, no quarters,’ and threatening to strike Iran’s vital infrastructures, have been attacking hospitals, ambulances, health workers, Red Crescent rescuers, refineries, water sources and residential areas,” Araghchi said.

He concluded by calling on the international community to abandon silence and indifference, warning that the failure to hold the U.S. and Israel accountable for violations in Gaza, Lebanon, and now Iran threatens to dismantle the core values of the United Nations and international human rights law.

“You all need to call out the aggressors and let them know that the community of States, the human collective conscience, hold them accountable for the abhorrent crimes they are committing against Iranians,” Araghchi said.

source: tehrantimes.com