The Rest of the World Report | Day 12 Update — Evening Edition
March 11, 2026
Quick one tonight. Went and caught an early viewing of The Hail Mary Project. Definitely recommend. Okay, onto the three things that we’re covering tonight.
1. THE SCHOOL
On the first day of this war — February 28 — a missile struck the Shajareh Tayyebeh Girls’ Elementary School in Minab, a small city in southern Iran. The children were in class. Most of them were between 7 and 12 years old.
The building had pink flowers painted on the walls.
165 people died. Most of them were girls.
For nearly two weeks, the US said it wasn’t responsible. Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One that it was “done by Iran” and called Tomahawk missiles “very generic.” Defense Secretary Hegseth said the US “never targets civilians.” The White House said anyone claiming otherwise was being “irresponsible and false.”
Today, that story collapsed.
Reuters, NPR, CNN, PBS NewsHour, and the New York Times all independently confirmed the same preliminary finding from an internal US military investigation: a US Tomahawk struck the school, likely because the Pentagon was using outdated targeting data. The school had been separated from the adjacent IRGC naval base for at least a decade — visible in satellite imagery going back to 2013. The targeting package apparently didn’t know that.
There’s more. PBS NewsHour reported that Hegseth and DOGE budget cuts had reduced the Pentagon’s civilian casualty prevention office by 90% — and its Middle East counterpart by two-thirds — before the war began. Hegseth himself, at a press conference just days after the strike, praised the end of “stupid rules of engagement.”
Al Jazeera’s digital investigation unit went further. Analyzing the strike pattern — which hit the school and the base but bypassed a medical clinic located between them — they concluded the executing party was “operating with coordinates and maps that distinguished between the complex’s different facilities.” In other words, someone had a list. The school was on it.
The UN Human Rights office called for an independent investigation. UNESCO called it “a grave violation of humanitarian law.” A panel of 18 UN experts on children’s rights said they were “alarmed.” The UN Secretary-General condemned it.
Trump said Wednesday he was “unaware” of the New York Times report. “I don’t know about that,” he told CNN’s Kristen Holmes.
🌍 TRANSLATOR’S NOTE: Outside the US, this story has been front-page since March 1. The name “Minab” is known across the Middle East, South Asia, and Europe the way “My Lai” is known to Americans of a certain age. The debate internationally is not whether it happened — that was settled by Bellingcat, BBC Verify, and multiple independent weapons analysts within days. The debate is whether it was negligence or something worse.
🇺🇸 WHAT AMERICAN READERS NEED TO KNOW: The investigation is ongoing and no final conclusions have been reached. But “ongoing investigation” is now the third version of this story from the US government. Version one was silence. Version two was “Iran did it.” Version three is “we’re looking into it.” Meanwhile, the office responsible for preventing exactly this kind of mistake was gutted before the first bomb fell.
2. THE IEA NUMBER JUST CHANGED — DRAMATICALLY
In this morning’s edition, we reported the International Energy Agency was considering releasing 100 million barrels from strategic reserves.
That number has been superseded. By a lot.
The IEA announced today a record release of 400 million barrels — four times the figure reported this morning, and the largest strategic reserve release in the agency’s history. Nothing like this has ever been done.
🌍 TRANSLATOR’S NOTE: The IEA doesn’t do this lightly. The previous record was the 60-million-barrel release after Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Quadrupling that figure tells you everything about how the agency views the severity of the Hormuz closure.
🇺🇸 WHAT AMERICAN READERS NEED TO KNOW: Strategic reserves exist for exactly this scenario. But 400 million barrels is also a finite number. The IEA is essentially betting the release will either end the war or buy enough time for alternative supply routes to come online. If neither happens, there is no second lever to pull.
3. THE UN SECURITY COUNCIL VOTED
The Gulf Cooperation Council’s resolution — Resolution 2817 (2026) — passed today, with 135 co-sponsoring nations. It demands Iran stop attacking Gulf Arab neighbors.
The Russia-backed counter-resolution failed. It received only 4 votes in favor — falling well short of the 9 required for adoption.
🌍 TRANSLATOR’S NOTE: 135 co-sponsors is a near-universal international consensus. Russia couldn’t muster a majority even among Security Council members for its own counter-text. That’s a significant diplomatic defeat for Moscow, and it signals that even nations that opposed the US-Israeli strikes are drawing a line at Iran’s attacks on civilian infrastructure in Gulf states.
🇺🇸 WHAT AMERICAN READERS NEED TO KNOW: The resolution that passed doesn’t address the US-Israeli bombing campaign — it specifically targets Iran’s strikes on its Arab neighbors. It’s not exoneration. But it does reflect a world that is simultaneously critical of how this war started and unwilling to back Iran’s regional escalation.
Day 13 Morning Edition resumes tomorrow. Stay with us.
— The Rest of the World Report
Sources: NPR, Reuters, CNN, PBS NewsHour, New York Times, Al Jazeera (digital investigations unit), Bellingcat, BBC Verify, Time, CBS News, UN OHCHR, IEA, Iran International
Thank you, Rudy Martinez. I can speak for myself, an American citizen opposed to the current administration's offenses against the rest of the world, that I'm embarrassed and ashamed.
Thank you. It’s been hard to know what’s true since we can’t trust what our government is telling us. This helps.