US strikes on Wednesday destroyed what appeared to be a drinking water facility on Iran’s southern coast, near the Strait of Hormuz, according to an analysis by the New York Times.
About the time of the strikes, US Central Command said in a post on X that it had conducted attacks near the strait “with precision munitions from US Air Force and Navy fighter jets”, the Times reported.
Iranian state media also reported that the US had hit water storage buildings. A local official said that water was cut off to more than 20,000 people living in a town and villages nearby.
The Times reported that a commercial satellite image from the morning of June 9 showed two small water structures in the village of Bemani. The buildings were consistent with the description of the two storage tanks that Abdolhamid Hamzehpour, the head of the provincial water authority, said had been destroyed.
It is unclear if the US intentionally struck the water facilities or knew what was in the buildings. Deliberately targeting civilian infrastructure could constitute a war crime under international law, the Times reported.