Overview
- The Feb. 28 strike on the Shajareh Tayyebeh school in Minab killed large numbers of civilians, including more than 100 children, and has become the central focus of U.S. and U.N. investigations.
- Investigators found multiple targeting failures that likely contributed to the mistake, including outdated satellite imagery, intelligence recorded in unconnected systems, sharply compressed review timelines, and cuts to civilian‑harm assessment teams.
- The Maven Smart System, built on Palantir software, was a central tool in the targeting workflow but did not autonomously pick the target; officials say users expected the platform to surface stale or inconsistent data that went unflagged.
- In response, CENTCOM, the Pentagon’s Maven office, and Palantir rolled out dozens of technical and procedural changes, adding open‑source imagery feeds, new analytic flagging to reassess intelligence, and strengthened human review steps before strikes.
- The U.N. finding that the Minab strike could be a war crime has increased diplomatic and legal pressure, while the Pentagon has not publicly accepted responsibility and the full internal probe report remains unreleased, leaving formal accountability unresolved.