Authors: Maayan Lubell, Alexander Cornwell and Idrees Ali
TEL AVIV/JERUSALEM/WASHINGTON, March 22 (Reuters) – Iran said on Sunday it would retaliate by attacking its Gulf neighbor’s energy and water systems if U.S. President Donald Trump follows through on a threat he issued a day earlier to attack Iran’s power grid within 48 hours, escalating a three-week war.
The prospect of a tit-for-tat attack on civilian infrastructure could further disrupt global markets when they reopen on Monday morning and threaten the livelihoods of millions of civilians in the region who in some cases rely almost entirely on desalination plants for water.
Two attacks in the southern Israeli towns of Arad and Dimona wounded dozens of people in the early hours of Sunday, and air raid sirens sounded across Israel since early Sunday morning, warning of missile attacks from Iran.
Hours later, the Israeli military said it would attack Tehran in response.
Trump’s warning on Saturday night came less than a day after he said the United States might consider ending the conflict, even as U.S. Marines and heavy landing craft were heading to the area.
“If Iran’s fuel and energy infrastructure is attacked by enemies, then in line with previous warnings, all energy infrastructure and information technology… and desalination facilities belonging to the United States and regimes in the region will be targeted,” Iranian military spokesman Ebrahim Zolfaqari said, according to state media.
But while an attack on electricity could hurt Iran, it could be catastrophic for its Gulf neighbors, which consume about five times more electricity per capita than Iran. Electricity makes these gleaming desert cities livable, in part by powering the desalination plants that produce 100% of the water used in Bahrain and Qatar. Such plants use seawater to meet more than 80% of the drinking water needs of the United Arab Emirates and 50% of Saudi Arabia’s water supply needs.
Iranian parliament speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf doubled down, writing on X that critical infrastructure and energy facilities in the Middle East could be “irreversibly damaged” if Iranian power plants were attacked.
Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guards said it would also mean the waterway that normally transports a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas along Iran’s southern coast would remain closed.
“The Strait of Hormuz will be completely closed and will not open until our destroyed power plants are rebuilt,” the Guard said in a statement.
The war launched by the United States and Israel on February 28 has killed more than 2,000 people and roiled markets, soared fuel costs, heightened global inflation concerns and shaken the postwar Western alliance.
“A ticking time bomb of heightened uncertainty”
“President Trump’s threats have now placed a ticking time bomb within 48 hours, leading to heightened market uncertainty,” said IG market analyst Tony Sycamore, who expects stocks to fall when they reopen on Monday.
Oil prices rose on Friday, closing at their highest level in nearly four years.
Last week, Israel attacked a major Iranian gas field and Tehran responded with attacks on neighboring Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait, raising the possibility that energy output could be damaged even if tankers resume sailings.
The Iranian attack effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz, triggering the worst oil crisis since the 1970s. The plant’s closure caused European natural gas prices to surge 35% last week.
“If Iran cannot fully open the Strait of Hormuz without threat, within 48 hours from this time, the United States of America will strike and destroy each of their power plants, starting with the largest ones!” Trump posted on social media at around 7:45pm ET (2345 GMT) on Saturday.
Iranian media quoted the country’s representative to the International Maritime Organization as saying the strait remained open to all shipping, except for vessels linked to “Iran’s enemies.”
Ali Mousavi said passage through the waterway was possible by coordinating security and safety arrangements with Tehran.
Ship tracking data shows that some vessels, such as an Indian-flagged vessel and a Pakistani oil tanker, have negotiated safe passage through the strait. But the vast majority of ships remain holed up inside.
Iran uses long-range missiles to expand risks
The United States and Israel say their three weeks of intensive air strikes have severely reduced Iran’s ability to project force beyond its borders.
But Tehran on Friday fired its first known long-range ballistic missile with a range of 4,000 kilometers (2,500 miles) at a U.S. and British military base in the Indian Ocean, widening the risk of attacks beyond the Middle East.
An Iranian attack also landed near a secret Israeli nuclear reactor about 13 kilometers (8 miles) southeast of the city of Dimona.
The war coincides with a confrontation on a separate front between Israel and Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah, with Israel saying on Sunday its forces had attacked multiple locations of the militant group in southern Lebanon.
Israeli military spokesman Brigadier General Efe Devlin told reporters that Israel will continue to fight Iran without interruption and expects “the battle with Iran and Hezbollah to continue for weeks.”
Hezbollah said it had attacked several border areas in northern Israel. Israeli emergency services said one person died at a kibbutz near the border. Israel later said it was examining whether the deaths were caused by Israeli fire.
Since Israel joined the regional war on March 2, Hezbollah has fired hundreds of rockets into Israel, leading to an Israeli offensive that has killed more than 1,000 people in Lebanon.
Israel said it had instructed the military to speed up the demolition of Lebanese homes in “frontline villages” to end threats to Israelis and destroy all bridges over Lebanon’s Litani River, which it said were used for “terrorist activities.”
Pope Leo called for an end to the conflict. “The death and suffering caused by this war is a scandal to the entire human family,” he said.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll last week found that 59% of Americans disapproved of a U.S. attack on Iran, while 37% supported it. The war has become a major political liability for Trump ahead of congressional elections in November.
(Reporting by Phil Stewart and Idrees Ali in Washington, Andrew Mills in Doha, Timour Azhari in Riyadh, Maayan Lubell in Jerusalem and Alexander Cornwell in Tel Aviv; Additional reporting by Reuters bureau; Writing by Lisa Shumaker, Michael Perry, William Maclean; Editing by Alexander Smith, Peter Graff, Jon Boyle and Diane Craft)
