U.N. Experts Found 'Reasonable Grounds' the U.S. Committed War Crimes in Iran. They Say the Minab School Was 'the Intended Point of Impact,' Not a Miss, and That Iran Itself Committed Crimes Against Humanity.

GENEVA — A panel of independent experts commissioned by the United Nations' top human rights body said Thursday it has found "reasonable grounds" to believe the United States committed war crimes in two missile strikes in southern Iran on the first day of the war, including the Feb. 28 attack on a girls' school in Minab that Iranian officials say killed about 170 people, most of them children between 7 and 12.

The international fact-finding mission on Iran, chaired by Bangladeshi jurist Sara Hossain and created by the Human Rights Council in 2022, published its report Thursday and is expected to present it to the 47-member council in Geneva on Monday. The findings are not binding, but they add to a growing body of evidence that could be used in future proceedings before international courts.

"Following the United States and Israeli attacks on 28 February, the mission found reasonable grounds to believe the United States committed the war crime of launching indiscriminate attacks resulting in the loss of life or injury to civilians or damage to civilian objects," the mission said in a statement. It described the Shajareh Tayyebeh school in Minab as "clearly identifiable" and said it found no evidence the building was being used for military purposes.

The experts went further than earlier reporting on the strike. They concluded that "the building of the school was the intended point of impact" and that the destruction was not the result of an errant Tomahawk or collateral damage from an attack on the adjacent Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps compound. That contradicts a preliminary U.S. intelligence assessment, described to CBS News by a person briefed on it, which suggested the United States was "likely" responsible but may have hit the school by mistake because of dated intelligence that still identified the area as part of an Iranian military installation. The Trump administration has never directly accepted responsibility and has not released the findings of a Pentagon investigation.

The second strike cited by the mission also came on Feb. 28, in the city of Lamerd, where the experts said Precision Strike Missiles dispersed tungsten pellets over a "clearly identifiable sports complex and residential area," killing 22 civilian men and women. U.S. Central Command has denied responsibility for that attack. Taken together, the mission said, the two strikes killed at least 178 civilians.

The report is equally harsh on Tehran. The experts found that killings by Iranian state security forces have occurred on a "staggering scale" and that "many of these gross violations amount to crimes against humanity — including murder, imprisonment, torture, and other inhumane acts committed as part of a widespread and systematic attack on civilians." They described security forces firing assault rifles into crowds during the January crackdown on nationwide protests, beating demonstrators, arresting health care workers and holding detainees without lawyers while their families were left "in the dark." More than 70 people, including five women and three boys, remain at "imminent risk of execution," the mission said.

Iranian civilians, the report said, have been caught between "gross human rights violations and crimes against humanity committed by their own government and the nation's deadly conflict with the United States and Israel." It called on both governments to halt all violations and provide "full reparations to victims."

The mission said its conclusions rest on interviews with 73 people inside and outside Iran, along with satellite imagery, photographs, video and documentation from organizations it deemed credible. Its work was hampered by the ongoing fighting, an internet shutdown in Iran and a lack of cooperation from both capitals: nearly three dozen requests for information to Iran's government went unanswered, as did requests sent to the U.S. government in June seeking information and meetings with officials.

The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press. The White House and the Pentagon also had not responded to NBC News by Thursday afternoon. Central Command declined to comment to CBS News on a separate report that Iranian forces had brought down at least two American MQ-1 drones in recent days.

The report lands days before Trump is due at the U.N. General Assembly in New York, where he is scheduled to meet Gulf leaders Tuesday to discuss what comes after the war. On Wednesday the president told reporters he hoped the end was near and that he had heard from Iran "directly" that it wants a deal.