Airstrikes yesterday hit two bridges and a train station in Iran, and Iranian officials urged young people to form human chains to protect power plants, as US President Donald Trump warned that a “whole civilization will die tonight” if Tehran did not meet his latest deadline to agree to a deal that includes reopening the Strait of Hormuz.
Trump has extended previous deadlines, but suggested the one set for 8pm Washington time was final, and the rhetoric on both sides reached a fever pitch, leaving Iranians on edge.
Trump threatened to destroy all of Iran’s power plants and bridges if Tehran does not allow traffic to fully resume in the strait, through which one-fifth of the world’s oil transits in peacetime.
Photo: AFP
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian wrote on X that 14 million people, including himself, have volunteered to fight.
It was not clear if the latest airstrikes were linked to Trump’s threat to attack bridges. At least two of the targets were connected to Iran’s rail network, which Israel earlier signaled it might attack. Israel has increasingly carried out strikes that it says are aimed at delivering a blow to Iran’s economy.
Meanwhile, Iran fired on Israel and Saudi Arabia, prompting the temporary closure of a major bridge.
Photo: AP
Officials involved in diplomatic efforts said talks were ongoing — but Iran has rejected the latest US proposal, and it was unclear if a deal would come in time to head off Trump’s threatened attacks. World leaders and experts warned that strikes as destructive as Trump threatened could constitute a war crime.
“A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again,” if a deal is not reached, Trump said in a post yesterday morning, while keeping open the possibility of an off-ramp, saying that “maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen.”
Earlier, Iranian official Alireza Rahimi issued a video message calling on “all young people, athletes, artists, students and university students and their professors” to form human chains around power plants.
Iranians have formed human chains in the past around nuclear sites at times of heightened tensions with the West. This time though, it was unclear who would heed the call, and one major power plant in Tehran apparently had been closed off for security purposes at the time the demonstration was to start.
French Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs Jean-Noel Barrot joined a growing chorus of international voices calling for restraint, saying attacks targeting civilian and energy infrastructure “are barred by the rules of war, international law.”
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also warned the US that attacks on civilian infrastructure are banned under international law, his spokesperson said.
Such cases are notoriously difficult to prosecute, and Trump told reporters he was “not at all” concerned about committing war crimes.
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