Win Without War, a peace advocacy group, displayed children's backpacks and shoes on Capitol Hill on March 18, 2026, to protest a U.S. strike on a school in southern Iran that killed over 100 children on Feb. 28. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)
WASHINGTON — Against a backdrop of children’s backpacks and shoes Wednesday, congressional Democrats protested President Donald Trump’s war with Iran, specifically denouncing an early U.S. strike that killed more than 100 elementary school students in the country’s southern city of Minab.
The lawmakers attended the installation organized by peace advocacy group Win Without War nearly 20 days into the U.S.-Israeli campaign in Iran that has claimed the lives of 13 U.S. service members, nearly 2,000 civilians and military personnel in Iran, just under 1,000 civilians in Lebanon, and dozens of civilians across the Persian Gulf nations and Israel, according to state officials and human rights organizations.
U.S. Rep. Yassamin Ansari, D-Ariz., who is Iranian-American, spoke on Capitol Hill on March 18, 2026, against President Donald Trump’s joint war in Iran with Israel. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)
The conflict, which Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have vowed to continue unabated, is “illegal” and a “war of choice,” the Democratic lawmakers said on the lawn just outside the U.S. House of Representatives.
Rep. Yassamin Ansari, D-Ariz., said Trump launched the war “without a clear case made to the American people and without any strategy or plan.”
“And that lack of planning has had devastating consequences. One of the very first strikes of this illegal war hit a girls elementary school in Iran, killing at least 175 people, most of them children,” said Ansari, who added she is the only Iranian-American member of Congress.
News reports citing Iranian authorities and human rights organization Amnesty International say 168 children were killed when the U.S. struck the Shajareh Tayyebeh Elementary School in Hormozgan province on Feb. 28, the first day of the war.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth told reporters on March 4 that the Pentagon is investigating the strike and that the U.S. does not target civilians.
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Reporters then pressed Hegseth days after a March 11 News York Times report revealed an ongoing military investigation determined a U.S. Tomahawk missile had hit the school.
“We’re not going to let reporting lead us or force our hand into indicating what happened in a particular situation, because the truth matters,” Hegseth responded during a March 13 briefing. “So I can report that (U.S. Central Command) has designated an investigating officer to complete a command investigation.”
Nearly every Senate Democrat demanded in a March 11 letter that the Pentagon swiftly reveal the investigation’s findings.
Hearings sought
Congressional Democrats are also urging Republican colleagues to hold open hearings where administration officials would be tasked with publicly testifying under oath.
“The administration refuses to send their decisionmakers up to Capitol Hill to explain why they dragged America into this war, and the reason they don’t want to show up is they don’t have good answers for the American people,” Sen. Chris Van Hollen said at the Wednesday event.
U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., on March 18, 2026, protested a U.S. strike on an elementary school in Iran against a backdrop of children’s backpacks and shoes on Capitol Hill. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)
“We have lost 13 of our service members (and) over 2000 civilians have been killed throughout the Middle East. And of course, those are the greatest losses, the loss of life, but it’s also costing the American people $1 billion a day,” the Maryland Democrat continued.
The cost to the federal government of funding the war is substantial, reaching $5.2 billion after just two days, according to one estimate. Other estimates have put the cost at closer to $11.3 billion after two weeks.
Ansari, Van Hollen and several other Democratic members at the protest assured they would vote ‘no’ should the White House ask Congress for extra money to fund the war.
The majority of House and Senate Republicans, and a handful of Democrats, have so far blocked attempts to rein in Trump’s executive war powers in Iran.
Senate Democrats are expected to force another War Powers Resolution vote as early as Wednesday evening.
Gabbard testifies to Senate
Senators tasked with overseeing federal intelligence had the opportunity to question Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and other top national security officials Wednesday at a previously scheduled annual hearing on the worldwide threat assessment.
Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., pressed Gabbard during the nearly three-hour hearing on Trump’s reasoning for attacking Iran last month when the administration claimed Iran’s nuclear weapons program had been “obliterated” in joint air strikes with Israel in June.
“Was it the intelligence community’s assessment that, nevertheless, despite this obliteration, there was a quote ‘imminent nuclear threat’ posed by the Iranian regime? Yes or no?” Ossoff asked.
“It is not the intelligence community’s responsibility to determine what is and is not an imminent threat,” Gabbard responded. “That is up to the president based on a volume of information that he receives.”
On Tuesday, Gabbard’s deputy, Joe Kent, director of the National Counterterrorism Center, publicly resigned in a letter stating “Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation.”
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