US strikes hit Iranian drinking water facility near Hormuz

American strikes near the Strait of Hormuz on Wednesday destroyed a drinking water facility in southern Iran, according to an investigation by The New York Times. The newspaper's Visual Investigations team identified two small water storage structures in the village of Bemani in Hormozgan province that were hit during the attacks, citing satellite imagery and video analysis of the damage.

Specialists at the Open Source Munitions Portal, which catalogs weapons debris from conflict zones, determined that fragments retrieved from the site came from a GBU-39 guided bomb, a US-made weapon weighing approximately 250 pounds, the Times reported. Tasnim, a semiofficial Iranian news agency, published images of the remnants and reported that water was cut off to more than 20,000 people after strikes hit two water tanks in the Bemani district.

Pentagon cites 'self-defense'

US Central Command said on Wednesday that American forces had "completed additional self-defense strikes against multiple targets," including Iranian military surveillance capabilities, communication systems, and air defense sites. The command stated that the strikes were conducted using "precision munitions" fired by Marine Corps, Air Force, and Navy assets, adding that they were "in response to Iran's unwarranted and continued aggression."

The Geneva Convention, which the United States is party to, classifies deliberate targeting of civilian infrastructure as a war crime. CENTCOM did not address the reported damage to the water facility in its statement, which focused instead on military targets it said were struck during the operations near the strategic strait.