“Israel depends on the desalination plants for about 80% of its drinkable water.”
What is expected if Iran will destroy them with swarms of drones?
Destruction of Israel's desalination plants—which provide up to 86% of its domestic water—by Iranian drone swarms would create a catastrophic national security crisis. This would likely cause immediate, severe water shortages, forcing rapid reliance on emergency reserves and triggering a massive, retaliatory military response, potentially escalating the conflict into a regional war.
Key Expected Impacts:
Immediate Supply Collapse: Loss of 80%+ of drinkable water, crippling major urban centers.
National Emergency: Severe rationing and reliance on limited emergency storage and aquifers, risking public health.
Escalation: Such a strike would likely be viewed as an existential threat, prompting a swift and massive, potentially unconventional, response from Israel.
“Iran on Sunday named Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of the slain Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as the nation's new supreme leader, Iranian state media reported, echoing the kind of hereditary rule the Islamic Republic once replaced.
An 88-member council known as the Assembly of Experts picked Khamenei as the Islamic Republic's top political authority, head of the country's armed forces and judiciary, and the highest authority in Shia Islam. The designation as supreme leader is a lifetime appointment.
Israel, which killed Ali Khamenei in a strike in February, earlier said that any new leader would be targeted.
Over the weekend, relentless airstrikes on Tehran lighted up the skyline with fireballs as Israel's military said it targeted several fuel-storage complexes, the first time energy infrastructure has been hit since the start of the U.S.-Israeli attacks in late February.
The strikes late Saturday set fire to oil-storage tanks at a refinery south of the Iranian capital, prompting Iran to advise citizens there to stay in their homes to avoid the resulting air pollution.
An Iranian drone attack, meanwhile, damaged a desalination plant in Bahrain, bringing the war to the oil-rich Persian Gulf's most strategic resource: drinking water.
The attack did material damage, the Gulf state's Interior Ministry said on Sunday. Iran hadn't addressed the attack, but a day earlier Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said the U.S. had attacked an Iranian desalination plant on the Gulf island of Qeshm. "The U.S. set this precedent, not Iran," he said on social media.
A spokesman for the U.S. Central Command, which is responsible for the Middle East, denied that the military hit a desalination plant in Iran.
U.S. military officials warned on Sunday that the Iranian regime is using "heavily populated civilian areas" to launch ballistic missiles and one-way attack drones. The practice is prevalent in the cities of Dezful, Esfahan and Shiraz, Central Command said in a "safety warning" to Iranian civilians.
Central Command on Sunday said a seventh U.S. servicemember has died in the U.S. operation against Iran, after suffering serious wounds from an attack in Saudi Arabia on March 1.
The identity of the servicemember, who died Saturday night, will be withheld until 24 hours after next-of-kin notification, Central Command said.
The number of U.S. citizens who have safely returned to the U.S. from the Middle East has risen to more than 32,000 since Feb. 28, Assistant Secretary of State Dylan Johnson said on Sunday. The State Department has completed nearly two dozen charter flights, he said.
The Israeli military said its air force struck Iranian military compounds housing F-14 jet fighters at Isfahan airport in Iran this weekend. Detection systems and air-defense systems were also struck, the military said, a move designed to expand control of Iran's skies.
In addition, the Israeli military said it had "dismantled" aircraft belonging to the secretive Quds force, which handles relationships with militant groups around the region, in a strike at Tehran's Mehrabad airport. Iranian state broadcaster IRIB reported that the site, which it described as Iran's oldest domestic airport, had been bombed late Friday.
The Israeli military on Sunday said that since the war began on Feb. 28 it had carried out strikes on 3,400 targets in Iran, intercepted over 110 drones and struck 600 Hezbollah targets and killed 200 militants in Lebanon.
It also confirmed on Sunday that two soldiers were killed in a Hezbollah attack in southern Lebanon, naming one, 38-year-old Master Sergeant Maher Khatar.
Meanwhile, Saudi Civil Defense said a military projectile struck a residential compound used by maintenance and cleaning companies in Saudi Arabia's Al-Kharj province on Sunday, killing one Indian national and one Bangladeshi national and injuring 12 others.
Authorities in Tehran cut fuel allowances for motorists after Israel struck storage tanks, the capital's governor said, the first additional restrictions since the war started. Access to motor fuel, which is heavily subsidized, is limited in Iran to avoid smuggling.
With desalination plants, the set of infrastructure targets being struck in the war has expanded, marking a new and dangerous escalation in a region where many countries have limited onshore sources of fresh water.
The Middle East's abundant desalination plants, which remove salt from the Gulf's seawater, are the key source of drinking water for millions of residents in the arid region.
"It's really going for the jugular, and in a major way," said Hussein Ibish, a senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute, a Washington think tank. "These desalination plants, even more than the energy infrastructure of the Gulf monarchies, are their Achilles' heel."
The Middle East accounts for more than 40% of the world's desalination capacity, with around 5,000 plants feeding its water systems.
Bahrain, where the drone strike occurred, is almost completely dependent on its plants for drinking water for its population of 1.6 million. Israel depends on the plants for about 80% of its drinkable water. About 90% of Kuwait's water needs are met by desalination.
While many Gulf countries keep strategic water reserves, smaller nations like Bahrain could see their stocks drawn down in days if their production capacity is compromised.
Saudi Arabia, the largest of the Gulf countries, has more ability to sustain attacks on water supplies than its immediate neighbors, Ibish said.
Iran's new supreme leader, 56 years old, lost not only his father in U.S.-Israeli airstrikes but other relatives including his wife and mother in the attacks, state media reported. He is close to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Basij paramilitary, essential elements of Iran's repression apparatus, and is likely to follow a hard-line direction as supreme leader, Iranian officials and analysts said.” [1]
1. Iran Picks Supreme Leader's Son to Run Country --- Desalination plant in Bahrain is struck by Tehran, while Israel targets oil facilities. Sune Engel Rasmussen; Lieber, Dov; Grove, Thomas. Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 09 Mar 2026: A1.
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