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Lessons from the “Good Tree” School Tragedy: Protecting Civilians from Military Exploitation | An article by Avi Melamed.
On the first day of Operation EPIC Fury, an elementary school for girls known as The Good Tree School in southern Iran was struck. Iranian authorities reported that 175 students and teachers were killed in the incident. Early reports raised the possibility that the school had been hit by a U.S. missile.
Nearly four months after the tragedy, the President of the United States addressed the incident, stating that the world may never know exactly what caused it.
In early March 2026, just days after the disaster, Al Jazeera published an investigative report concluding that the damage was not caused by interceptor debris. Rather, the evidence suggested that the school had indeed been struck by a missile.
Two key findings from the Al Jazeera investigation deserve particular attention.
First, satellite imagery from 2013 shows that the school was physically adjacent to a military compound operated by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), known as Sayyid al-Shuhada. The entire complex, including the school—was surrounded by guard towers and observation posts. Satellite imagery from September 2016 shows that a wall was later constructed around the school, and access to the school was separated from the military complex. Yet the school remained directly adjacent to the military installation.
Second, according to the investigation, additional two civilian facilities operated within the military compound itself: a medical clinic and a girls’ school.
These findings raise unavoidable questions for the Iranian regime. Why was a school located immediately adjacent to a military facility? Why were a medical clinic and a girls’ college operating inside a military compound? Were these civilian facilities intended to provide the military installation with protection from attack?
The tragedy at The Good Tree School should serve as a catalyst for the international community to develop and enforce a consistent and firm policy against the placement of military infrastructure within civilian areas.
Prominent examples of this practice include Iranian-backed organizations such as Hezbollah and Hamas, both of which have repeatedly embedded military assets within civilian environments, including schools, residential neighborhoods, hospitals and mosques. In both Lebanon and the Gaza Strip, Hezbollah and Hamas have faced significant and justified criticism for locating military infrastructure in densely populated civilian areas—a practice that has, tragically, contributed on numerous occasions to civilian casualties.
This article is also available as a Podcast: the AiTME Podcast. This Podcast was written and created by Avi Melamed, Middle East Intelligence Analyst and Founder of Inside The Middle East [ITME], an institute dedicated to apolitical, non-partisan education about the Middle East.
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Lessons from the “Good Tree” School Tragedy: Protecting Civilians from Military Exploitation | An article by Avi Melamed.
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