US lawmakers press Centcom chief over Iran war civilian deaths

Democratic Representative John Garamendi questioned Admiral Brad Cooper during a hearing on Tuesday over whether the Pentagon believes hostilities between Tehran and Washington have ceased since last month’s ceasefire announcement.

Cooper said the US remained in a ceasefire despite attacks by both sides in recent weeks.

“That’s not my question,” Garamendi replied. “My question was is the military assessment that hostilities have ceased since April?”

Cooper responded that this was his assessment, while adding that “Iran pushes it.”

The House Armed Services Committee’s top Democrat also pressed Cooper over the bombing of an elementary girls' school that killed more than 165 people, most of them children, during the early stages of the US-Israeli war on Iran.

Cooper said the incident remained under investigation and described the strike as complex, saying the school was located on a missile site operated by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps.

He said he was committed to transparency once the inquiry was complete, but Democratic Representative Adam Smith responded: “I do not trust that answer.”

Smith said he respected Cooper but accused US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth of showing a “callous disregard” for civilian lives.

The girls’ school in Iran was hit with two strikes, with the second missile killing sheltering survivors, two first responders and the parent of a slain child told Middle East Eye for a previous story.

“When the first bomb hit the school, one of the teachers and the principal moved a group of students to the prayer hall to protect them,” one of the Red Crescent medics said, citing conversations he had at the time with survivors.

“The principal called the parents and told them to come and pick up their children. But the second bomb hit that area as well. Only a small number of those who had taken shelter survived.”

Almost all the 165 people killed in the attack were girls aged between seven and 12, according to local officials. 

Read more: Exclusive: Iranian girls killed by ‘double-tap’ strikes on Minab school