Bahrain accused Iran of striking a desalination plant Sunday, raising fears that the expanding war in the Middle East will target civilian infrastructure critical to water supplies in the Gulf.
Bahraini officials said the strike damaged a desalination facility that produces drinking water for the island nation. Desalination plants are vital to the Gulf region, where countries rely heavily on them to convert seawater into fresh water.
The U.S. 5th Fleet is located in Bahrain, and several other attacks have hit hotels, ports, and residential towers and killed at least one person in the country.
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The attack came as fighting between Iran, Israel, and the United States continued to spread across the region, with Israeli forces striking an oil storage facility in Tehran overnight and renewing attacks against Hezbollah-linked targets in Lebanon.
Verified videos showed towering flames and thick smoke rising from the oil facility in Tehran after the strike late Saturday. It appeared to mark one of the first known attacks on a civilian industrial energy site since the war began.
Israel also struck targets in southern Lebanon and Beirut as part of its campaign against Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militant group that has exchanged fire with Israeli forces for months and intensified attacks since the war began.
The war erupted Feb. 28 after joint U.S.-Israeli strikes targeted Iranian military sites and leadership. Since then, Iran has launched waves of missile and drone attacks against Israel and several Gulf countries hosting U.S. forces or aligned with Washington.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on Sunday threatened to escalate attacks on American targets across the Middle East as Israel and U.S. strikes continued inside Iran.
Iran also accused the United States of damaging a desalination plant in Iran’s Qeshm Island earlier in the war. Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said such strikes created a precedent for attacks on critical water infrastructure.
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“When we are attacked, we have no choice but to respond. The more pressure they impose on us, the stronger our response will naturally be,” Pezeshkian said in a video. “Our Iran, our country, will not bow easily in the face of bullying, oppression, or aggression — and it never has.”
The war has already killed more than 1,200 people in Iran, hundreds in Lebanon, a dozen in Israel, and six U.S. soldiers.