CAMERA’s Israel office prompted the correction of a map that falsely attributed a reported strike on a girls’ school in Minab to both the United States and Israel. The erroneous graphic appeared in a March 3 update of an article entitled “Visualizing the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran and retaliation in maps and charts,” which has been repeatedly updated since its Feb. 28 publication.
Screenshot of CNN’s initial map which attributed a strike on a girls’ school in Minab to both the U.S. and Israel, Mar. 3, 2026.
The map included the entire region and pinpointed hits, with a color code attributing the strikes to either the U.S. and Israel or to Iran.
A red pin on the Minab girls’ school attributed the strike to the U.S. and Israel despite the fact that at the time CNN’s own reporting acknowledged that the perpetrator of the strike was unknown.
In that Mar. 1 report, CNN notably said that “CNN has not been able to independently verify” Iranian claims that a U.S. or Israeli strike hit the school.
CNN’s Isobel Yeung also reported in the same item that the Israeli Defense Forces said they were checking reports and were not aware of a U.S. or Israeli strike at that location, while U.S. Central Command likewise had not claimed responsibility and said it was investigating the incident.
One of the map’s cited sources, the Institute for the Study of War, also stated that the perpetrator of the strike was unknown.
Screenshot of the Institute for the Study of War map that shows that the perpetrator of the reported strike on the Minab girls’ school is unknown, Mar. 4, 2026.
The New York Times, which reported on the strike as well, similarly stopped short of confirming that Israel or the U.S. carried it out.
When zoomed in, the map also claimed the strike killed more than 150 schoolgirls, while omitting the key context that the school was located just meters from an IRGC military base.
Notably, as of Mar. 7, the reported death toll, attributed to Iranian health officials and state media, has yet to be independently verified.
Following CAMERA’s communication, CNN replaced the map with one that pinpoints strikes without attributing them to Iran, Israel, or the U.S., and removed the unconfirmed death toll from the illustration.
Screenshot of CNN’s updated map following CAMERA’s communication, Mar. 6, 2026.
On Mar. 5, U.S. military investigators said it is likely that U.S. forces alone were responsible for the reported strike on the girls’ school but emphasized that the investigation had not been completed, Reuters reported, citing two U.S. officials.
The New York Times also published an analysis of its own, stating that it appears that the school was hit during U.S. strikes on the adjacent military base.
In any case, it still remains possible that an Iranian missile struck the school at the same time as U.S. strikes.
Even if these later assessments ultimately prove correct, journalists are not oracles; they must rely on verified information available at the time of publication rather than prematurely assigning blame for tragic civilian harm.
Regardless, although the U.S. and Israel are allies in this operation against Iran, not every strike carried out by either party is a joint operation and should not automatically be attributed to both.
CAMERA urges news outlets to attribute each strike to the specific party responsible rather than lazily grouping parties together in culpability.