Civilian Infrastructure in the Iran War: Schools, Water Plants, Universities — and Who Hit Them

Day One: The Minab School Strike

The war began on February 28, 2026, with coordinated U.S.-Israeli strikes across Iran. Among the targets struck that morning was the Shajareh Tayyebeh Elementary School — which translates as "The Good Tree" — in the city of Minab, Hormozgan province, in southern Iran.

Iranian state media reported that at least 168 people were killed in the strike, with subsequent recovery efforts raising the toll to at least 175, according to Wikipedia's documentation of the 2026 Minab school attack, citing Iranian state media. Human Rights Watch noted that as of March 4, Iranian state media had reported 168 dead, while stating it could not independently verify that number. Amnesty International's investigation concluded that 168 people were killed, including over 100 children. The Guardian reported up to 168 killed and 95 injured, noting it could not independently verify the figures due to restrictions on reporting inside Iran.

Neither the United States nor Israel initially claimed responsibility. An Israeli military spokesperson told Human Rights Watch that it was "not aware of any [Israeli military] strikes in the area." U.S. Central Command spokesperson Tim Hawkins stated that "U.S. forces do not target civilians," according to Wikipedia's account of the Qeshm desalination plant attack.

Independent investigations reached different conclusions. Amnesty International, publishing its findings on approximately March 16, concluded that the United States was responsible and that the strike violated international humanitarian law. Amnesty's investigation found that the school building was directly struck alongside 12 other structures in an adjacent IRGC compound, using guided weapons. Amnesty said this pointed to "a failure by US forces to take feasible precautions to avoid civilian harm." The organization noted that the school is walled off with a separate entrance from the IRGC compound, and said U.S. forces "could, and should, have known it was a school building."

Amnesty's Senior Director of Research Erika Guevara-Rosas said: "This harrowing attack on a school, with classrooms full of children, is a sickening illustration of the catastrophic and entirely predictable price civilians are paying during this armed conflict. Schools must be places of safety and learning for children. Instead, this school in Minab became a site of mass killing."

Human Rights Watch called on the U.S. and Israel to investigate the attack as a possible war crime, saying the pattern of strikes showed "highly accurate, guided munitions" were used, ruling out accidental misdirection. The Tomahawk missile identification was confirmed by eight munitions experts, including Sam Lair of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies and U.S. Air Force Special Operations targeting expert Wes Bryant, according to Wikipedia's documentation of the attack. The U.S. was the only party to the conflict known to use the Tomahawk missile. U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Dan Caine confirmed at a March 2 press briefing that the U.S. Navy had fired Tomahawk missiles on February 28 in southern Iran, according to Amnesty International UK.

The U.S. government has announced an investigation into the strike. Amnesty International called for the investigation to be "impartial, independent and transparent" and for results to be made public.

Water Infrastructure: Qeshm Island and Kuwait

On March 7, 2026, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi accused the United States of striking a freshwater desalination plant on Qeshm Island, saying the attack disrupted water supplies to 30 villages, according to Foreign Policy. Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei called attacking Iran's infrastructure "a dangerous move with grave consequences" and stated "the US set this precedent, not Iran," according to Iran International.

Both the United States and Israel denied responsibility for the Qeshm plant attack, according to Wikipedia's entry on the 2026 Qeshm Island desalination plant attack. Reports briefly appeared in the Israeli press suggesting the UAE had carried out retaliatory strikes, but the UAE denied this, stating it "will never place the Iranian people in the same basket as the Iranian regime," according to Wikipedia.

The authorship of the Qeshm attack remains officially disputed as of March 30, 2026.

The water infrastructure conflict escalated in both directions. On March 22, Iran's military operational command Khatam al-Anbiya announced that Iran would strike "all energy, information technology and desalination infrastructure" belonging to the U.S. and Israel in the region, according to The Guardian. The announcement came in response to what Iran said were U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iranian power and water facilities.

On March 29, Iran followed through against a Gulf target: an Iranian attack struck a service building at a power generation and water desalination plant in Kuwait, killing at least one person — confirmed by Kuwait's government as an Indian worker, according to Al Jazeera. Iran subsequently denied responsibility for that particular strike, with its military's operational command Khatam al-Anbiya claiming "the brutal aggression by the Israeli regime against Kuwait's desalination plant" was carried out by Israel, according to Al Jazeera. Responsibility for the Kuwait desalination plant strike remained contested as of March 30, 2026.

Universities: Tehran and Isfahan Struck, IRGC Threatens Retaliation

In the final week of March, strikes expanded to include Iranian universities. On March 28, the Iran University of Science and Technology (IUST) in Tehran was hit by what Iranian media described as targeted U.S.-Israeli strikes, according to Al Jazeera. Casualties and damage from the IUST strike were not confirmed by independent sources as of March 30.

A day later, on March 29, a university in Isfahan was struck for the second time since the war began, leaving four university staff members wounded, according to Al Jazeera. The Jerusalem Post identified the institution as the Isfahan University of Technology (IUT).

Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesperson Baghaei condemned the university strikes, claiming that "other research facilities" were being systematically targeted, according to Open the Magazine's reporting. The IRGC responded with a direct threat: after the university strikes, the IRGC said it would attack universities tied to the U.S. and Israel across the Middle East in retaliation, according to Al Jazeera's March 30 account. Le Monde confirmed that Iran's Revolutionary Guard threatened on March 29 to target U.S. universities in the Middle East.

The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad issued a warning to American citizens on or around March 30, warning that Iran and its proxies "may intend" to target U.S.-affiliated educational institutions in the region, according to Al Jazeera. The specific wording of the embassy warning could not be independently verified in full from available sources.

The Legal Framework

International humanitarian law — specifically the Geneva Conventions and their Additional Protocols — prohibits the targeting of civilian objects, including schools, hospitals, and water infrastructure essential to civilian survival. Attacks on such objects are only lawful if the object has been converted to military use. Even then, the expected civilian harm must not be disproportionate to anticipated military advantage — the principle of proportionality.

Amnesty International's investigation into the Minab school strike stated that the school building being on the interior border of an IRGC compound does not automatically make it a lawful military target, because the school was separately walled and operated as a civilian institution. Amnesty raised two scenarios: either U.S. forces failed to identify the school and proceeded negligently, or they identified it and targeted it deliberately — the latter of which would constitute a war crime under international law.

Human Rights Watch separately called for investigation as a potential war crime, noting that guided munitions were used, which rules out accidental misdirection.

The U.S. government's position — that it does not target civilians — is a legal denial, not an investigation finding. The announced investigation's scope, independence, and timeline had not been publicly specified as of March 30, 2026.

On Iran's side, strikes on Gulf desalination plants, residential buildings, and Kuwait's civilian power infrastructure also raise international law questions. UN Security Council Resolution 2817, adopted March 11, 2026, demanded Iran "immediately halt all attacks on neighbouring countries" and specifically condemned attacks on civilian infrastructure, according to PassBlue and UNSCR.com.

The Casualty Picture on Both Sides

Iran has claimed more than 2,000 people have been killed in U.S.-Israeli strikes on roughly 90,000 civilian sites, according to Al Jazeera's March 30 report. These figures come from Iranian government sources and cannot be independently verified given severe restrictions on independent reporting inside Iran.

On the Israeli side, the Alma Research and Education Center's daily report of March 29 stated that since the beginning of the war, 19 civilians had been killed in Israel, and more than 5,768 people had been injured to varying degrees as a result of direct hits, falling interception debris, and secondary damage.

In the Gulf states hosting U.S. bases, Iran's strikes had killed more than 50 people as of March 28, according to the New York Times. Al Jazeera's casualty tracker showed a lower figure of at least 25 as of an earlier reporting date. At least 13 U.S. soldiers had been killed in Iranian attacks, confirmed by Al Jazeera's casualty tracker, PBS News, and the New York Times.

Independent casualty verification inside Iran remains severely constrained. The independent NGO Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) documented 3,114 deaths in Iran from airstrikes by March 17, including 1,354 civilians, 1,138 military personnel, and 622 unclassified dead, according to Wikipedia's documentation of the 2026 Iran war. This is higher than the Iranian government's own "2,000+" figure, suggesting the government may be undercounting relative to what independent monitors found — though HRANA's access inside Iran also has limitations. Separately, HRANA reported 72 strikes in 20 Iranian provinces on March 1, 2026 (Day 2 of the war), with at least 6 civilians killed and 4 injured, hitting 15 military or security facilities, 7 civilian infrastructure sites, 5 hospitals or emergency bases, and 2 residential or educational facilities, according to HRANA's own published report.