Aniefiok Christopher
Tehran is unswayed by President Donald Trump’s threat to reopen Strait of Hormuz, threatening to escalate strikes on energy infrastructure and target critical water desalination facilities.
Trump on Saturday evening gave Tehran a 48-hour deadline to reopen the critical trade route, through which around 20% of the world’s oil passes, threatening in a post on Truth Social to target and ”obliterate” Iran’s energy infrastructure if the demand is not met.
Iran has effectively blocked the strait since the U.S. and Israel launched their attacks on the country on February 28, sparking swift retaliation from the Islamic Republic and triggering a wider war in the region.
The Trump administration said Friday it had lifted some sanctions to allow the sale of oil produced in Iran in the latest bid to temper soaring energy prices. Meanwhile, earlier this month, it also lifted the Jones Act, easing some shipping regulations on oil, with some sanctions on Russian oil also lifted temporarily.
Trump has repeatedly called on U.S. allies to aid in clearing the Strait of Hormuz to little avail, telling reporters on Friday that China, Japan and NATO should be intervening.
The ultimatum, made just a day after the US leader said he was considering “winding down” military operations after three weeks of war, came as the key oil passage remained effectively closed and thousands more American Marines headed to the Middle East.
Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Tehran had imposed restrictions only on vessels from countries involved in attacks against Iran, and would assist others that stayed out of the conflict.
In response to Trump’s threat, Iran’s army said it will target energy, desalination infrastructure “belonging to the US and the regime in the region,” according to the Fars news agency.
Desalination, the process of creating drinkable water from seawater, is critical to supplying water across Israel and many of Iran’s Gulf neighbors.
Trump’s ultimatum Saturday landed hours after two Iranian missiles struck southern Israel, injuring more than 100 people in the most destructive attack since the war began. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to retaliate “on all fronts.”
The strikes, which slipped through Israel’s missile defence systems, tore open the facades of residential buildings and carved craters into the ground.
First responders said 84 people were injured in the town of Arad, 10 of them seriously. Hours earlier, 33 were wounded in nearby Dimona, where AFPTV footage showed a large hole gouged into the ground next to piles of rubble and twisted metal.
Dimona hosts a facility widely believed to be the site of the Middle East’s only nuclear arsenal, although Israel has never admitted to possessing nuclear weapons.
The Israeli army told AFP there had been a “direct missile hit on a building” in Dimona, with casualties reported at multiple sites, including a 10-year-old boy in serious condition with shrapnel wounds.
In Arad, emergency workers combed through the rubble of heavily damaged buildings.
Netanyahu vowed to continue striking Iran after what he called a “very difficult evening” and hours later, the Israeli military said its forces launched a wave of strikes on Tehran.
Iran said the targeting of Dimona was retaliation for Israeli strikes on its Natanz nuclear facility, with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) saying forces also targeted other southern Israeli towns as well as military sites in Kuwait and the UAE.
Following the Natanz attack, UN nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi reiterated his call for “military restraint to avoid any risk of a nuclear accident.”
The Natanz facility hosts underground centrifuges used to enrich uranium for Iran’s disputed nuclear programme and sustained damage in the June 2025 war.
The Israeli military denied it was behind the Natanz strike, but said it had struck a facility at a Tehran university that it claimed was being used to develop nuclear weapon components for Iran’s ballistic missile programme.
– Hormuz base –
The destruction in Israel capped three weeks of heavy US-Israeli bombardment that appeared to have done little to blunt Iran’s ability to retaliate with missile and drone attacks across the region.
Iran also launched an unsuccessful ballistic-missile attack on the US-UK base at Diego Garcia, around 4,000 kilometres (2,500 miles) away, a UK official told AFP — which would have been the longest-range Iranian strike yet had it succeeded.
The United Arab Emirates said Saturday it faced aerial attacks after Iran warned it against allowing strikes from its territory on disputed islands near the Strait of Hormuz.
Iran has choked off the vital waterway, which carries a fifth of global crude oil trade in peacetime.
The standoff has sent crude oil prices soaring, with North Sea Brent crude now trading above $105 a barrel, as long-term consequences for the global economy become an acute concern.
A joint statement from the leaders of several countries — including the UK, France, Italy, Germany, South Korea, Australia, the UAE and Bahrain — condemned the “de facto closure of the Strait of Hormuz by Iranian forces.”
“We express our readiness to contribute to appropriate efforts to ensure safe passage through the Strait,” they said.
Trump has slammed NATO allies as “cowards” and urged them to secure the strait.
– Remarkable endurance? –
Analysts say Iran’s government has survived the loss of its top leaders and that its strike capacity is proving more durable than expected.
“They’re showing a lot of resilience that we didn’t perhaps expect, that the US didn’t expect, when it took this on,” Neil Quilliam of Chatham House told the think tank’s podcast.
Tehran, meanwhile, marked the end of Ramadan as the war entered its fourth week.
Iran’s supreme leader traditionally leads Eid al-Fitr prayers, but Mojtaba Khamenei — who came to power earlier this month after his father Ali Khamenei was killed — has remained out of the public eye.
Instead, the head of the judiciary, Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejei, attended prayers at central Tehran’s overflowing Imam Khomeini grand mosque.
“The atmosphere of the New Year was spreading through the city,” said Farid, an advertising executive reached by AFP through an online message.
But “the thought that some people could be dying right at the New Year dinner table was painful,” he added.
AFP
