US strikes hit an Iranian water facility: experts warn it could be a war crime
US strikes during the Iran war damaged a water facility at Bemani that supplies some 20,000 people, in a country already gripped by historic drought. International-law experts warn that deliberately targeting civilian water infrastructure could constitute a war crime. We are awaiting the US/Pentagon's full justification — whether it considers the site a legitimate or dual-use military target.
Analysts and international-law experts say strikes that knocked out the Bemani water facility — a key reservoir for around 20,000 people during a historic drought — could amount to a war crime, because deliberately targeting infrastructure indispensable to a civilian population is barred under the laws of war. They argue water systems are not lawful military objectives and that damaging them inflicts collective punishment on non-combatants.
