Some websites and social media accounts linked to Israel claimed the site was “part of an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps base”.

However, an analysis by Al Jazeera’s digital investigations unit of satellite imagery compiled over more than a decade, as well as recent video clips, published news reports and statements from official Iranian sources, tells a very different story.

The findings reveal that the school had been clearly separate from an adjacent military site for at least 10 years.

These schools are classified as nonprofit institutions and are primarily intended to provide educational services to the sons and daughters of members of the IRGC Navy.

In more than one announcement, the children of IRGC Navy members are explicitly invited to attend on specific days to complete first-grade enrolment, with another notice stating that registration for children of non-members opens on different days.

However, this administrative link (to the IRGC) or the identity of the parents does not change the schools’ legal status as civilian facilities under international humanitarian law, unless they were being used in military operations.

And the children who attend them – whether they are the children of military personnel or civilians – remain protected people with special protection in armed conflicts, including the prohibition on intentionally targeting them or carrying out attacks that could harm them.