TEL AVIV/JERUSALEM/WASHINGTON –
Iran said on Sunday it would strike the energy and water systems of its Gulf neighbors in retaliation if U.S. President Donald Trump follows through with a threat delivered a day earlier to hit Iran’s electricity grid in 48 hours, escalating the three-week-old war.
The prospect of tit-for-tat strikes on civilian infrastructure could further rattle global markets when they reopen on Monday morning, and threaten the livelihoods of millions of civilians in the region who rely almost exclusively in some cases on desalination plants for water.
Air raid sirens sounded across Israel from the early hours of Sunday, warning of incoming missiles from Iran, after scores of people were hurt overnight in two separate attacks in the southern Israeli towns of Arad and Dimona.