US strikes near the Strait of Hormuz on Wednesday destroyed what appears to be a drinking water facility in southern Iran, The New York Times reported, citing satellite imagery and video analysis.
The Times' Visual Investigations team identified two small water storage structures in the village of Bemani in the Hormozgan province.
Earlier, Iranian media reported that strikes hit two water tanks in the Bemani district, with a local official reportedly saying that water was cut off to more than 20,000 people.
Tasnim, a semiofficial Iranian news agency, published images of weapons remnants retrieved from the site.
Specialists at the Open Source Munitions Portal, which catalogs weapons debris from conflict zones worldwide, determined that the fragments came from a GBU-39 — a US-made guided bomb weighing roughly 250 pounds, according to the Times.
That conclusion aligns with the damage captured on a video of a damaged building, it added.
Under the Geneva Convention, which the US is a party to, deliberately targeting civilian infrastructure is a war crime.
The military’s US Central Command (CENTCOM) said on Wednesday that US forces had "completed additional self-defense strikes against multiple targets," including Iranian military surveillance capabilities, communication systems, and air defense sites, using “precision munitions” fired by US Marine Corps, Air Force, and Navy assets.
The command said the strikes were "in response to Iran's unwarranted and continued aggression."
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