Iran said it would target regional power plants and float mines in the Persian Gulf if U.S. President Donald Trump went ahead with his threat to bomb Iranian energy stations or ordered a land invasion.
The top commander of the U.S. military’s Central Command said the campaign against Iran was “ahead or on plan." The Israeli military early Monday began what it called “a wide-scale wave of strikes targeting Iranian terror regime infrastructure.”
The death
toll from the war has risen to more than 1,500 people in Iran, more than 1,000 people in Lebanon, 15 in Israel and 13 U.S. military members, as well as a number of civilians on land and sea in the Gulf region. Millions of people in Lebanon and Iran have been displaced.
Here is the latest:
Ofer “Poshko” Moskovitz was killed on Sunday in Misgav Am, a northern community on the border with Lebanon.
The army said Monday that following an examination it determined that Moskovitz was hit by Israeli artillery fire due to “operational errors,” including directing the fire “at an incorrect angle” and not following protocol.
“As a result, five artillery shells were fired at the Misgav Am ridge instead of toward the enemy target,” the army said in a statement. It expressed regret over the incident, which it described as “very severe.”
“The deliberate destruction of infrastructure in Lebanon represents a blatant Israeli policy of collective punishment,” the Egyptian Foreign Ministry said in a Monday statement.
It criticized Israel’s “systemic and deliberate” strikes, including on bridges on the Litani River in south Lebanon.
The wife of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu flew to Washington early Monday morning to take part in a meeting of first spouses from dozens of countries organized by first lady Melania Trump.
According to the prime minister’s office, Netanyahu will be in the states for two or three days and is expected to return to Israel immediately afterward. The White House said the meeting of first spouses will focus on supporting children through the “safe and innovative use of technology.”
The strike on the bridge Monday in the southern village of Qaaqaaiyet al-Jisr cut a main link between the southern city of Nabatiyeh and al-Hujair valley region farther south.
The state-run National News Agency gave no further details about the latest strike on a bridge on the Litani river to be destroyed in recent days.
On Sunday, Israel struck the Qasmiyeh bridge near the southern port city of Tyre.
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun called Israel’s new targeting of bridges in the south “a prelude to a ground invasion.”
Iran’s Defense Council issued the statement as concern in Tehran grows about the potential arrival of U.S. Marines to the region.
“Any attempt by the enemy to target Iran’s coasts or islands will, naturally and in accordance with established military practice, lead to the mining of all access routes ... in the Persian Gulf and along the coasts,” the council said.
The U.S. has been trying to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf, to energy shipments. The Marines could come ashore to seize either islands or territory in Iran to support that mission. Israel also has suggested a ground operation could take part in the war.
Jamal Abdi, head of the National Iranian American Council, described President Donald Trump’s threat to strike Iran’s energy facilities as a “collective punishment.”
“Threatening to bomb Iran’s power plants is a threat to millions of civilians,” he said. “This is not a ‘targeted’ strike. This is collective punishment.”
A senior United Nations official said the war in the Middle East has “far reaching” impact on millions of people particularly in developing countries in Asia and Africa.
In a Monday statement, Jorge Moreira da Silva, executive director of the U.N. Office for Project Services, detailed the ripple effects of the war, now in its fourth week, including “exponential price hikes in oil, fuel and gas.”
“Our world is the most violent it has been since the Second World War,” he said.
He warned that the number of hungry people is likely to increase by tens of millions over the course of the year, as the widening war threatens remittance flows.
The war also displaced 3.2 million people in Iran and 1 million in Lebanon, he said.
He called for diplomacy to end the conflict, saying: “There is no military solution.”
As Trump’s 48-hour deadline to bomb power-generation sites in Iran over the opening of the Strait of Hormuz approaches, there are several electrical sites that could be targets in the Islamic Republic.
Some 80% of all power generated in Iran is created at plants powered by natural gas.
Those plants have continued working, even after Israel last week bombed Iran’s South Pars offshore natural gas field in the Persian Gulf.
Among the top natural gas plants are Damavand Power Plant, Shahid Salimi Neka Power Plant and Shahid Rajaee Power Plant – all around Iran’s capital, Tehran.
Knocking those plants offline could affect businesses and homes in Tehran, as well as halt gas stations and other crucial sites.
— By Jon Gambrell
An adviser to the UAE has criticized Arab and Islamic organizations’ response to Iran’s continued attacks in the Arab Gulf countries.
“Where are the joint Arab and Islamic labor institutions,” Anwar Gargash said in a social media post Monday, naming the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation.
Gargash, who is a former state minister for foreign affairs, said it will be “unacceptable” after the war to talk about “the decline of the Arab and Islamic role or to criticize the American and Western presence” in the Gulf region which hosts U.S. and Western bases.
The UAE, which has close ties with Israel and the U.S., has been the hardest hit by Iranian missiles and drones since the war in the Middle East began on Feb. 28.
After Iran threatened power plants across the Mideast, news outlets published a list of such facilities, including the United Arab Emirates’ nuclear power plant.
The report by the semiofficial Fars news agency, close to its paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, appeared to be an indirect threat to the sites, including desalination plants in the Middle East. The list also included the UAE’s Barakah nuclear power plant, which has four reactors out in the western deserts of the country near its border with Saudi Arabia.
The judiciary’s Mizan news agency also published the list.
The threat by Tehran puts at risk both electrical supplies and water in the Gulf Arab states, particularly as the desert nations commingle their power stations with desalination plants crucial for supplying drinking water.
Trump’s self-declared 48-hour deadline expires just before midnight GMT Tuesday, further raising the stakes of the ongoing war with Iran that has disrupted global energy supplies, sending natural gas and gasoline prices soaring.
U.S. President Donald Trump wrote on his Truth Social website early Monday: “PEACE THROUGH STRENGTH, TO PUT IT MILDLY!!!”
The head of the U.S. military’s Central Command says Iran is “operating in a sign of desperation” by targeting civilian sites in the war.
In an interview with the Farsi-language satellite network Iran International aired early Monday, U.S. Navy Adm. Brad Cooper said: “They’re operating in a sign of desperation. ... In the last couple of weeks, they’ve attacked civilian targets very deliberately, more than 300 times.”
Cooper also noted the slowdown in Iranian incoming fire across the Mideast as the war has entered its fourth week.
“At the beginning of the conflict, you saw large volumes in the dozens of drones and missiles,” Cooper said.
“You no longer see that. It’s all one or two at a time.”
