Anyone giving you a confident answer on this is going to be doing so baselessly. The real answer is "we don't know". Journalists for the world's most well-connected news organizations have been working around the clock just to identify that the missile was even American. That's the state of information right now, and the unfortunate fact is we're just going to have to wait for an answer if one ever comes.

The most you can really know right now is "it didn't need to happen, and it was the US' fault regardless."

I suspect that the intent is to ensure that the war goes on as long as possible by creating circumstances in which the Iranians will never stop fighting. Israel and the US need a constant state of war to protect their administrations and military industries. Doing things like this means that there will be no peace efforts any time soon. That is so obvious that is pretty much has to be the intent here.

EDIT: Worth noting that the US and Israel have actually struck MULTIPLE schools, hospitals, and dense residential structures. Whatever the reason, it is absolutely NOT an accident.

Here's one attempt to explain: https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2026/03/joy-at-death-and-destruction/ (Craig Murray isn't some crackpot pulling thoughts out of thin air, he's a former British ambassador and fairly famous whistleblower).

Because this isn't one of those "woke wars" like we had in the past. If you kill all the kids, they can't grow up and fight for Iran. 🦅💪🇱🇷🇱🇷🇱🇷

We do know that the US was targeting the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corp (IRGC), and the school is in an IRGC compound.

The most likely explanation seems to be that they intended to target an IRGC building, but instead hit the school. Whether that's an issue with the missile's guidance system, the plane's targeting system, outdated maps, or a flaw in whatever process the military is using to select targets, is unknown.

It's of course, possible that the US intentionally bombed a little girls school, but it seems somewhat unlikely. Even the most hawkish war mongerers recognize that randomly slaughtering hundreds of school girls is not going to gain support for your war.

Well... You know, Trump has a complicated relationship with little girls.

If you want an educated guess: they were probably letting some LLM do target selection.

Either a mistake or old Intel, since the building was used for military shit like a decade beforehand.

Either way, it was likely just good old fashioned incompetence from a country that's demoted itself into doing a shit job at nearly everything.

If you ask MAGA, "it's so the Democrats can whine about it."

A realistic answer would be that they are taking a leaf out of the IDF's book and are being cruel just for cruelty's sake.

It was next to a naval base and the Trump administration can't be arsed to check what they are bombing

“shock and awe” (and profit. it’s always profit.)

I read in another article it was near a naval yard, so looked like they either missed or had bad intel. As for why they won’t admit it…I mean we’ve all seen this administration - no admissions of wrongdoing no matter what, no matter how big or small the stakes.

We know they want the Iranian people to rise up, overthrow their government, and welcome the US forces as glorious liberators, (IMHO the probabilities are maybe, possibly, no chance), so I wonder if they're trying to cause as much harm as possible so people will go "if we just overthrow our government, the US will stop hurting us". It would be psycopathic of the US to think so, but I have seen no evidence to suggest that makes it impossible.

Of course, now that they're using "AI" they get to blame that for any targeting "mishaps" that become a liability.

The terrorists here are Israel and the US

Transgression through the ultimate taboo: child sacrifice. They do it in front of our eyes to capture attention, share the karmic responsibility, and cultivate learned helplessness.

There are several possible reasons that may not cover 100% regardless.

1. Out dated target information. The structures might have been something else at sometime but have changed with little to no intel in the region.
2. For our technical might, we still fuck up a lot. Think of competent your coworkers are, now give them access to heavy ordinance.
3. It's intentional. From the attack on the desalination plant they may just be in the process of causing death and misery because they revel in it. Hegseth has said no more "woke wars" whatever that means.

Well, the actual NYT article has the headline

U.S. Tomahawk Hit Naval Base Beside Iranian School, Video Shows

The school appears to be part of the same compound as the naval base. Presumably someone or something thought it was part of that base.

The AI decreed it so!

We either fuck 'em or kill 'em. Murica

We don’t know if it was a mistake or not, and we still do not have proof who was the attacker.

If it was done by mistake: Mistakes can happen easily, especially when the processes are fresh and everything is chaotic. Those mistakes can happen on all levels, from intelligence to the person actually shooting.

If it was done on purpose: propaganda is a big weapon and there can be multiple motivations doing an attack like that. Non of them include ethical standards, international law or morals. War sucks always.

I'm pretty sure this administration was well versed in ruining children's lives and required no assistance.

They didn't summarize the video correctly (which you should watch).

The video confirms a tomahawk cruise missile was used to strike the naval base, shortly after the school was already hit.

It just confirms that the school was also most likely hit by a tomahawk, a munition only the US is currently fielding in the area.

Something something human shields /s

I totally expect the US to use the same excuses Israel uses in Gaza