A secretive investigation into the attack that killed at least 175 has concluded, reports suggest. Will its findings ever see the light of day?

The attack on a girls’ elementary school in the Iranian town of Minab was one of the US military’s deadliest civilian bombings in decades. But nearly four months on, the Pentagon has produced no answers about why the military fired a Tomahawk cruise missile into a school on the first day of the war, killing at least 175 people, mostly children.

Some critics doubt that the Pentagon ever will, or will bury the results under classifications to keep the worst mistakes secret from the public.

Writing by Narges Mohammadi, arrested 14 times for activism, offers a disturbing insight into treatment

In an exclusive extract of writing smuggled from prison in Iran, the Nobel peace prize laureate Narges Mohammadi has described the “torture” of solitary confinement, and her systematic medical neglect by the prison system.

The writing from the past decade will be part of a soon to be published memoir that gives a rare and alarming insight into the treatment of Mohammadi, who is in critical condition. It details beatings, constant interrogations, deprivation of medical care and long stretches in solitary confinement during her numerous imprisonments.

Tess McClure reports on the US bombing of the Shajareh Tayyebeh school in Iran, and the families who lost loved ones in the attack

On 28 February, during the first US-Israeli bombing campaign in Iran, there was a strike on Shajareh Tayyebeh school in Minab.

“The impact of dropping a 2,000-plus pound bomb on a primary school full of children mostly seven to 12 years old and their teachers is just unimaginable,” Tess McClure, the Guardian’s editor for rights and freedom, tells Nosheen Iqbal.

Hours before the world learned that a US missile had hit Shajareh Tayyebeh school, parents were already searching the rubble for their sons and daughters. In this exclusive report, four families describe the events of 28 February

When Marzieh heard the first bang, an almighty crash that rattled the room, her first thought went to her youngest son, Mohammad. He must have got out on to the balcony and discovered a new game, she thought: using all of his small might to smash its sliding doors closed. Marzieh stood up from where she was working at her sewing machine, and shouted for him to stop.

Numerous faked images and a string of startlingly inaccurate responses from Gemini and Grok are part of a tidal wave of AI slop engulfing coverage of the Iran war

The graves, freshly dug, lie in neat rows of 20 across. More than 60 have already been carved out of the earth, with a few clusters of people standing gathered around them. Dozens more are marked out on the ground in front: small chalk rectangles, with diggers poised to complete their task.

The cemetery of Minab, photographed as it prepares to bury more than 100 of the town’s young girls, is one of the defining images of the US-Israeli war on Iran, bluntly capturing the devastating civilian toll.

In the race to meet the demands of the energy transition, biodiversity hotspots such as Palawan in the Philippines are being increasingly mined for critical elements

• How nature is being sacrificed for mining across the world – a data visualisation

Moharen Tahil Tambiling lowers himself from the fishing boat into the water and gingerly picks his way over the reef circling the bay. At low tide here in Brooke’s Point on Palawan, a long, rugged island in the south-west of the Philippines archipelago, the coral is just under the surface, and it looms suddenly under the waves, scraping at the boat’s wooden hull.

Beneath his feet are brain-like mounds and curling fingers of coral. Leaning over the side of the fishing boat, the men point out different kinds: some which were once vibrant orange and others that should be delicate pink. Now, almost everything is the same dull khaki, covered by a thick film of silt. Another man jumps overboard, stirring the sediment. A cloud rises like thick smoke over the reef.

Trump has blamed Iran for the mass killing at Shajareh Tayyebeh primary school but geolocation, videos, satellite imagery and fragments apparently recovered from the site indicate otherwise

The bombing of a primary school in Minab on 28 February killed scores of people, most of them seven- to 12-year-old girls. The strike is the worst mass killing of the US and Israel’s war on Iran so far – and has been described by Unesco as a “grave violation” of international law.

On Saturday, the US president, Donald Trump, declared that Iran was responsible for the school bombing. “In my opinion, based on what I’ve seen, that was done by Iran … they’re very inaccurate, as you know, with their munitions. They have no accuracy whatsoever. It was done by Iran.”

Footage of attack on Minab compound adds to evidence indicating it was a US strike that killed scores of children

• Middle East crisis – live updates

A video has shown a US Tomahawk missile hitting the Iranian naval base next to a primary school in Minab where more than 168 people, mostly children, were killed – adding to evidence that indicates the US was responsible for the school strike.

The video, released by the Iranian news agency Mehr and geolocated to the site by the investigative collective Bellingcat, shows the missile hitting the Minab compound on the morning of 28 February, when US-Israeli strikes on Iran began.

A strike on Shajareh Tayyebeh school during the US-Israeli bombing campaign killed up to 168 people. The Guardian has pieced together the incident and its aftermath using verified footage and images from the site

Above the pastel murals of trees, paintbrushes, crayons and microscopes, black smoke rises. The glass windows of the school have been blown out by the force of the blast, and its curtains hang shredded from the frames.

Against one burned-out wall, the remains of a playground lie scattered: a red plastic slide, a jumble of child-sized chairs. On an overturned bookshelf a pair of pink plastic sandals have been neatly placed, now covered in dust from the blast.

Strike on girls’ elementary school in south of Iran has killed 148 people and injured 95 others, according to Iran state media

• US-Israel war on Iran – latest updates

The death toll from a missile strike on a girls’ school in southern Iran has risen to almost 150, according to Iranian state media.

Mizan news agency, the official news outlet of Iran’s judiciary, reported that the number killed in Saturday’s strike on a girls’ elementary school in Minab in southern Iran had risen to 148 killed, with 95 others wounded. The news agency cited Ebrahim Taheri, a prosecutor in Minab.

The building appears to be among many devastated in Trump’s ‘major combat operations’ as long expected attacks arrive

• Full report: Ayatollah Ali Khamenei killed

• US-Israeli attack on Iran – live updates

• What we know so far: US and Israel wage war on Iran

Iran’s parents had just dropped their children off for class on Saturday morning when they found themselves racing back to school gates, as bombs began to fall across the country in a joint US-Israel attack.

At one elementary school, according to Iran’s state-controlled media, they arrived to find devastation. At least 100 children had been killed in the strike on Shajareh Tayyebeh girls’ school in Minab, southern Iran, the Mizan news agency reported, with dozens more unaccounted for.

Exclusive: Expert analysis of images from one hospital suggests severe trauma to the face, chest and genitals was caused by metal birdshot and high-calibre bullets

Across the planes of Anahita’s* face, white dots shine like a constellation. Some gleam from inside the sockets of her eyes, others are scattered over the young woman’s chin, forehead, cheekbones. A few float over the dark expanse of her brain.

Each dot represents a metal sphere, about 2-5mm in size, fired from the barrel of a shotgun and revealed by the X-ray camera for a CT scan. Shot from a distance, the projectiles, known as “birdshot”, spray widely, losing some of their momentum. At close range, they can crack bone, blast through the soft tissue of the face, and easily pierce the eyeball’s delicate globe. Anahita, who is in her early 20s, has lost at least one eye, possibly both.

The Guardian has constructed a timeline for the terrible events of one night of protests in Rasht, based on first-hand accounts, video and photographs

On Thursday 8 January, Iran went dark. In the midst of massive national protests, the government shut down the internet, phone calls, and almost all communication out of the country. That evening a violent crackdown began. In some cities, government forces opened fire on crowds, killing thousands – according to some estimates, possibly tens of thousands – in two days of bloodshed. The internet blackout has meant that a clearer picture of what happened – drawn from witness reports, videos, photographs and testimony from hospitals – has taken time to assemble.

When the violence began, there were demonstrations taking place in more than 200 cities, according to human rights groups. This is the story of what unfolded in one of them.

Testimony from medics, morgue and graveyard staff reveals huge state effort to conceal systematic killing of protesters

On Thursday 8 January, in a midsize Iranian town, Dr Ahmadi’s* phone began to buzz. His colleagues in local emergency wards were getting worried.

All week, people had taken to the streets and had been met by police with batons and pellet guns. With treatment, their injuries should not have been too serious. But emergency room staff believed many wounded young people were avoiding hospitals, terrified that registering as trauma patients would lead to their identification and arrest.

Like the narco-state, a ‘scam state’ refers to countries where an illicit industry has dug its tentacles deep into institutions and transformed the economy

For days before the explosions began, the business park had been emptying out. When the bombs went off, they took down empty office blocks and demolished echoing, multi-cuisine food halls. Dynamite toppled a four-storey hospital, silent karaoke complexes, deserted gyms and dorm rooms.

So came the end of KK Park, one of south-east Asia’s most infamous “scam centres”, press releases from Myanmar’s junta declared. The facility had held tens of thousands of people, forced to relentlessly defraud people around the world. Now, it was being levelled piece by piece.

Methanol, a cheap relative of ethanol, is entering the supply chain, causing thousands of deaths around the world

For Bethany Clarke, poison tasted like nothing. There was no bitter aftertaste, no astringent sting at the back of the tongue. If anything, she thought in passing, the free shots she and her friends were drinking at a hostel bar in Laos had probably been watered down – she wasn’t detecting a strong vodka flavour through the veil of Sprite she had mixed it with.

All in all, Clarke remembers drinking about five of those shots, sitting with her best friend, Simone White, and a crowd of others at the hostel’s happy hour. CCTV footage shows the group laughing in the warm air of the open bar in the town of Vang Vieng, green and red lights dancing over their shoulders.