Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has issued a forceful denunciation of a deadly missile strike on a girls’ school in southern Iran, describing the attack as a “massacre” and demanding that those responsible be swiftly identified and held to account.

Addressing the Italian Senate, Meloni said she was speaking “on behalf of the government” as she condemned the strike on a school in the coastal city of Minab, in Iran’s Hormozgan province. The attack, reported to have taken place on the first day of the current Middle East war, left scores of students dead or wounded, according to Iranian media.

“I express my firm condemnation of the massacre of girls at the school in Minab, southern Iran,” Meloni told lawmakers, calling the victims “very young” and emphasising that the targeting of children in a place of learning violated the most basic norms of humanity and international law.

She offered solidarity to the families of the dead and injured, saying Italy stood with them in mourning and in their demand for justice. “We want responsibility for this tragedy to be swiftly ascertained,” she said, urging an impartial investigation capable of cutting through the competing narratives already emerging around the strike.

Iranian authorities have accused the United States and Israel of carrying out the missile attack, framing it as part of a broader campaign against the Islamic Republic. Washington has rejected direct blame, with then US President Donald Trump stating that the United States was “investigating the strike right now,” while also pointing a finger back at Tehran’s regional activities. Israel has denied any involvement.

The reported death toll has varied, but Iranian outlets have said that at least 165 people were killed, most of them schoolgirls. Independent verification has been difficult: international news agencies have not been able to access the site, and communications restrictions, along with the intensity of the wider conflict, have complicated efforts to confirm the details.

Meloni’s intervention places Italy among the European voices pressing for clarity and accountability over civilian casualties in the spiralling regional war. Her remarks underscore growing concern in European capitals that attacks on schools and other civilian infrastructure risk becoming a grim hallmark of the conflict, further eroding already fragile norms meant to shield children from the worst horrors of war.