“It may be considered a war crime.” Experts warn against Trump carrying out his threat to strike Iran’s infrastructure

US President Donald Trump threatened to target Iranian power plants, and possibly water desalination plants, if Iran did not reopen the Strait of Hormuz. An attack on desalination plants constitutes a “provocative escalation,” said David Michel, a senior scholar on water security at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Laurent Lambert, an associate professor at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies in Qatar, said that if the attacks on desalination plants were “the beginning of a military policy, and not just mistakes or collateral damage, then this is illegal - a war crime - and a very worrying development, as the Gulf states only have enough water reserves to last a few weeks.” Amnesty International said the potential for "widespread, predictable and devastating civilian harm" from strikes on energy infrastructure means such attacks "carry a significant risk of violating international humanitarian law".

On the other hand, the White House said on Monday that the US military “will always act in accordance with the law.”