{"id":488607,"date":"2026-06-12T03:26:19","date_gmt":"2026-06-12T03:26:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/488607\/"},"modified":"2026-06-12T03:26:19","modified_gmt":"2026-06-12T03:26:19","slug":"military-strikes-on-water-facilities-in-iran-may-constitute-a-war-crime-experts-say-us-israel-war-on-iran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/488607\/","title":{"rendered":"Military strikes on water facilities in Iran may constitute a war crime, experts say | US-Israel war on Iran"},"content":{"rendered":"

Military strikes that damaged two water storage facilities in southern Iran<\/a> may constitute a war crime, military and legal experts say, after reviewing media reports and visual evidence of a 10 June strike on Bemani, a small district about 2 miles from the strait of Hormuz.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s unclear if the strikes deliberately targeted the district\u2019s water tanks, or if they unintentionally destroyed a key reservoir for about 20,000 people living nearby. But if the tanks were the target, then the legal question becomes critical, Brian Finucane, a former state department lawyer, said. \u201cIt\u2019s either a military objective or it\u2019s a civilian object: attacking one is lawful, attacking the other is a war crime,\u201d Finucane said.<\/p>\n

Iran\u2019s state broadcaster said Wednesday\u2019s strikes were carried out by the US military<\/a>, though the Guardian could not verify if that was the case.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are aware of reports and are looking into it,\u201d Tim Hawkins, a spokesperson for US Central Command (Centcom), the operating authority for US military operations in the Middle East, said in a statement.<\/p>\n

The strikes on Bemani may be part of an escalating effort to force Iran to accept a deal on US terms, breaching a tenuous ceasefire agreement <\/a>that has been in place since April and compounding US threats to capture Iranian infrastructure and take control of its oil industry. Donald Trump has warned that Iran will \u201cpay the price\u201d<\/a> for stalling negotiations and boasted on Wednesday that \u201cwe hit them hard yesterday and we\u2019re going to hit them hard again today.\u201d<\/p>\n

Conflicting reports emerged on Thursday about whether the US, Iran and several Gulf countries had reached a deal to end the conflict. Trump said he was calling off planned strikes in advance of what he characterized as a deal agreed to in principle on most major points. Trump has claimed dozens of times<\/a> to be close to an agreement to end the war, and that the Iranian leadership had agreed to a deal when in fact they had not.<\/p>\n

The destruction of Bemani\u2019s water tanks occurred shortly after Centcom announced strikes on \u201cIranian air defense, ground control stations, and surveillance radar sites near the Strait of Hormuz\u201d by US air force and navy fighter jets in a post<\/a> on X. The White House declined to comment on the strikes on Bemani and referred all questions about the operation to Centcom.<\/p>\n

The attack on Iran\u2019s water infrastructure comes amid the heat of summer and a historic drought.<\/p>\n

\u201cIran\u2019s water crisis has left the country with virtually no margin for error,\u201d said Ali Vaez, an Iran expert at the International Crisis Group. \u201cFurther disruptions could prove catastrophic for the population. But Tehran is more likely to endure a deepening thirst at home than satisfy Trump\u2019s thirst for a political victory.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lawmakers have also raised questions about the president\u2019s continued use of force in Iran, and cited the risks of any expanded campaign that targets crucial water infrastructure.<\/p>\n

\u201cIran is one of the most water-challenged countries in the world right now, and we\u2019re in the hottest part of the year where damages to civilian water access are going to have the most acute consequences,\u201d said Tim Kaine, a Virginia senator. \u201cWhether it was a mistake in targeting or intentional targeting, this is not a minor matter.\u201d<\/p>\n

Iran\u2019s semi-official news agency posted photos of destroyed water tanks as well as images of munition fragments that Trevor Ball, a former US army technician, identified as pieces of a GBU-39 bomb \u2013 a precision-guided munition produced in the US and often sold to allies in the Middle East including Israel and the United Arab Emirates.<\/p>\n

Ball described the damaged water facility as \u201cremote\u201d and said that it was \u201cvery unlikely that two buildings were both directly hit if that\u2019s not what they were aiming for\u201d.<\/p>\n

Several military analysts and Iran experts said that the Bemani strike was the first publicly reported attack on water infrastructure in Iran. Earlier this year, the US hit a girls\u2019 school in Minab<\/a>, killing dozens of students aged seven to 12. The US military has not commented on its role in the elementary school attack.<\/p>\n

Multiple former officials with deep experience in military targeting said that if the US did intentionally target a water facility, it would be unprecedented.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s never been on the table to hit any water infrastructure \u2013 in any campaign that I\u2019ve been a part of,\u201d said Wes Bryant, who advised the US military on the use of force in Iraq and Syria. \u201cPre-Trump 2.0, I would have said that \u2018Absolutely we don\u2019t target water infrastructure. This is a misidentification.\u2019 But now I\u2019m not sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

Finucane, who consulted on use of force issues for both Republican and Democratic administrations in more than half a dozen countries, agreed.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t recall ever seeing the US military conduct a deliberate strike on water infrastructure this way,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s not clear to me whether that is what took place here,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Before the US military conducts a deliberate operation, it must evaluate the legality of any potential strike against two key criteria, Finucane said. First, commanders must determine if the target is a lawful military objective. And second, the military must determine that the expected harm to civilians would not be excessive compared with the anticipated military advantage.<\/p>\n

\u201cChecking that first box as to whether it was a lawful military objective is critical,\u201d Finucane said. \u201cBecause if it\u2019s not a lawful military objective, you\u2019re attacking a civilian object, and attacking a civilian object is a war crime.\u201d<\/p>\n

Congress voted to constrain US action in Iran<\/a> on 3 June, securing four Republican votes in favor of an unprecedented resolution to rein in Trump\u2019s power to continue the conflict. Kaine said that he planned to bring a war powers resolution to the Senate in response to the latest strikes on Iran, and will also demand answers from the Pentagon.<\/p>\n

If the strike on Bemani\u2019s water facilities turns out to be intentional, Kaine said that it will \u201cabsolutely\u201d affect Republicans\u2019 support for the war.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe one thing the president cares about is his own popularity,\u201d Kaine said. \u201cThe combination of American citizens being mad about gas prices and losing Republican votes who had been supportive \u2026 they don\u2019t affect his ability [to wage war], but they start to affect his calculations about going in a different direction.\u201d<\/p>\n

While it\u2019s unclear exactly how the strike on Bemani came to be, Kaine also raised concerns about the use of AI in selecting US military targets. \u201cAI, without appropriate human oversight, could lead you to commit an egregious mistake,\u201d Kaine said. \u201cWe are obviously deeply concerned about the role that AI may have played in the Minab strike, and we will have the same questions about the water strike.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Military strikes that damaged two water storage facilities in southern Iran may constitute a war crime, military and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":488608,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-488607","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488607","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=488607"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488607\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/488608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=488607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=488607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=488607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}