By Feliz Solomon

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said that the U.S. takes allegations of civilian casualties "very seriously" and cautioned against making judgements based on open-source information, or Osint, in response to a question about a deadly strike at a girls' elementary school in Iran.

"No nation takes more precautions to ensure there's never targeting of civilians than the United States of America," Hegseth told reporters on Tuesday. He added that "open source is not the place to determine what did or did not happen."

U.S. investigators said last week that American forces were likely responsible for the strike that hit Shajarah Tayyebeh Girls' School, in the city of Minab, on the first day of the war. An Israeli military official said on Monday that Israel had nothing to do with the strike. President Trump has suggested the Iranians were responsible, without citing evidence.

Iranian officials say at least 160 people were killed in the strike, many of them children. The school was connected to a compound linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, an elite branch of Iran's armed forces, according to an analysis by The Wall Street Journal. Satellite images show that multiple buildings on the compound were hit in what military analysts say looked like precision strikes. Video footage geolocated by Bellingcat appears to show what the Osint group said was a tomahawk missile hitting the compound. The U.S. has been very restrictive about who it provides with tomahawks. Iran isn't known to possess them.

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March 10, 2026 11:48 ET (15:48 GMT)

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