New footage shows US cruise missile striking near Iranian girls' school where children were killed

New footage has emerged appearing to show a US Tomahawk cruise missile striking a compound near a girls’ school in Minab, southern Iran, where scores of students and staff were killed during the opening days of the US-Israeli war on the country.

The seven-second clip, released by Iranian state media, shows a missile slamming into a building inside a walled compound believed to have once been part of an Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) naval base.

The compound also included a health clinic and was located next to the Sharajeh Tayyebeh girls' elementary school, where between 165 and 180 people were killed in the strike, many of them students.

Dense smoke can already be seen rising from the area of the school in the footage, suggesting the missile strike occurred shortly after the initial blast that devastated the school building.

The video has been geolocated and analysed by investigators from the Dutch open-source research group Bellingcat.

Although the quality of the footage makes the munition difficult to identify with certainty, analysts say the missile appears consistent with a US Tomahawk cruise missile, a weapon only Washington is known to have deployed in the conflict.

US officials have acknowledged that American forces were conducting operations in southern Iran at the time of the strike.

The attack was widely blamed on the United States in the days following the incident. However, US officials insisted that Washington would not deliberately target a school and said investigations into the bombing were ongoing.

On Saturday, US President Donald Trump denied that the United States was responsible for the strike, instead blaming Iran without providing evidence.

"It was done by Iran," Trump said, according to CBS.

Satellite imagery shows the school complex and the nearby compound were separated only by a wall.

The area was previously home to the Sayyid al-Shuhada military complex, which included facilities used by the IRGC's Asif Brigade, although reports indicate the base had been largely abandoned for years.

The strike formed part of the first wave of US attacks on Iran on 28 February, which triggered the escalation of the US-Israeli war and the current regional crisis.

The moment when Israeli and American terrorists struck #Minab school#minabmassacre#MINABSCHOOL pic.twitter.com/kHJEOukowj

— Mehr News Agency (@MehrnewsCom) March 8, 2026

Since the start of the bombardment, Iranian officials say at least 1,255 people have been killed and more than 12,000 wounded across the country, including women, children and healthcare workers.

Trump has cited several reasons for launching the war, including countering what Washington describes as Iranian threats to the region and US interests, preventing Tehran from obtaining nuclear weapons, and pursuing regime change, despite Iran repeatedly denying it is seeking a nuclear arsenal.

The first wave of strikes killed Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and several other senior officials, marking a dramatic escalation in tensions.

The attacks followed months of rising pressure on Tehran, including Trump’s threats to strike Iran during nationwide anti-government protests, stalled nuclear negotiations mediated by Oman earlier this year, and the aftermath of the 12-Day War in June last year, when the United States and Israel targeted Iranian nuclear facilities and killed hundreds.