Iran families relive deadly Minab school strike

For six months, Masoumeh Zakeri has replayed the final night she spent with her 9-year-old daughter Motahreh before a strike hit her school in Iran’s southern city of Minab.

The night before the attack, Motahreh spoke excitedly about upcoming holidays, weddings and clothes she wanted to buy. She ate a Ramadan pre-fast meal before her mother tucked her into bed.

“I never saw her again. (That was) the last time,” the 44-year-old mother said.

Motahreh woke before her parents and took a bus to Shajareh Tayebeh school. Hours later, attacks on Iran began and Zakeri received a call asking her to collect her daughter.

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She arrived after the school had been struck.

Motahreh was among at least 155 people killed, most of them children, in what Iran says was the deadliest strike reported during the war.

Her body was recovered later that day and identified “by her earrings and bracelet.”

Six months later, much of the school remains in ruins. Portraits of the children killed now surround collapsed walls and twisted steel, while Iranian flags fly above the rubble.

Iran says two separate U.S. Tomahawk missiles struck the school. Neither the United States nor Israel has officially claimed responsibility. Amnesty International blamed the U.S., while The New York Times reported that a U.S. Tomahawk cruise missile hit the school.

Since an April ceasefire, the intense bombardments have largely stopped, but diplomatic efforts to end the war have stalled.

Zakeri chose not to see her daughter’s body after it was recovered because she feared the sight would replace her memories of Motahreh.

“She was very loving, cheerful and really energetic,” she said.

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“Now, our house is completely quiet.”

Persian literature teacher Yaghoub Yazdanpanah also remembers receiving urgent calls telling him to collect his 6-year-old daughter Fatemeh as strikes hit Iran.

Then came another call informing him that her school had been struck.

“I just couldn’t believe it,” the 34-year-old said.

Yazdanpanah rushed towards the school but encountered traffic as fire and thick smoke rose over the area.

The scale of the attack became clear when he reached the scene.

“I couldn’t breathe. I went and sat in a corner. I had collapsed and couldn’t really stand on my feet,” he said.

Fatemeh’s body was found later that day.

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Painter Javad Shahrjou also rushed to the school searching for his youngest son, Alireza. He said a second missile strike blew him and his motorcycle away shortly after he arrived.

“When I entered the yard, children were in pieces ... a head here, a foot there. A girl was falling from the second floor,” he said.

His 7-year-old son was recovered three days later and identified through his underwear, socks and shoes.

“He was all charred,” Shahrjou said.

Authorities plan to preserve the damaged school as a memorial. Search operations are also continuing for three missing children.

For some parents, returning to the site remains too difficult.

“It’s very difficult for me after what I had seen up close,” Yazdanpanah said.

Instead, families visit the cemetery where their children are buried.

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Arash Tondro, who lives near the school and lost an 8-year-old relative, questioned why the site was hit.

“The place where the school was had been a military base about 10 or 12 years ago,” he said.

Now, he said, “there is absolutely no military site or anything.”

Zakeri continues to visit Motahreh’s grave but says her grief has made thinking about the future difficult.

“Imagining the future is very difficult for me,” she said.

“We have no plans at all. We just can’t bring ourselves to go anywhere or do anything.”