The early morning strike on Wednesday destroyed civilian water infrastructure in Sirik, cutting off access to drinking water for more than 20,000 residents across the town of Kuhestak and 10 villages in the Bemani district where local temperatures exceed 45 degrees Celsius.
Abdolhamid Hamzehpour, managing director of the Hormozgan Water and Wastewater Company, said Thursday that the destruction of the reservoirs has created "a major problem for the region's water supply network" because groundwater reserves in the area are insufficient and cannot provide an immediate replacement.
Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, US President Donald Trump vowed to intensify military aggression against Iran, explicitly warning that water supplies could be among the targets.
"We hit 'em hard yesterday. We're gonna hit 'em again hard today, in case you don't turn on your television set," Trump said.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian responded sharply to Trump's threats, dismissing them as a reflection of American frustration rather than strength.
"Critical infrastructures are the lifeblood of the people. Threats to target them, from transportation networks to the electricity and water industries, are not a show of strength but a sign of desperation in the face of a nation's will," Pezeshkian said.
The targeting of water infrastructure has drawn sharp condemnation from Iranian officials and international legal experts, who say such attacks may constitute war crimes under international humanitarian law.
Mojtaba Qahramani, head of the Hormozgan provincial judiciary, announced that legal action would be pursued in both domestic and international judicial bodies.
He cited Article 52 and Article 54 of the 1977 First Additional Protocol to the Geneva Conventions, which explicitly prohibit attacking, destroying, or rendering unusable objects essential to the survival of the civilian population — including drinking water facilities and reservoirs.
Legal experts note that Wednesday's attack on Sirik was not the first time water infrastructure has been threatened in the terrorist war.
In late March, Trump threatened to "blow up and completely destroy all of their power plants, oil wells, and Kharg Island (and possibly all of their desalination plants!)" if Iran did not reach an agreement.
At that time, international legal experts strongly condemned those threats.
Yusra Suedi, a professor of international law at the University of Manchester, stated: "This is clearly an act of collective punishment, which is prohibited under international humanitarian law. You cannot deliberately harm entire civilians to put pressure on their government."
Raed Jarrar from the advocacy group DAWN stated that threatening to wipe out a nation's water supply "is not a negotiating tactic; it is a classic form of collective punishment and a war crime".
On Thursday, the New York Times said its analysis of satellite imagery and videos released by provincial authorities concluded that US targeting a water facility could constitute a war crime.
“Deliberately targeting civilian infrastructure could constitute a war crime," he said.
The Sirik strike is not an isolated incident. Since the outbreak of hostilities between Iran, Israel, and the United States on February 28, water and desalination facilities have been among the most critical and vulnerable infrastructure targets in the conflict.
According to a humanitarian update published by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in March, airstrikes on infrastructure — including a desalination plant and fuel depots — have disrupted basic services and created serious public health and environmental risks across Iran.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has confirmed US attacks on a desalination plant on Qeshm Island off the coast of Iran in the Strait of Hormuz.
"In a region already facing extreme heat, chronic water scarcity, and a rapidly warming climate, the loss of drinking-water infrastructure is more than physical damage," Iranian environmental expert and Virginia Tech geophysicist Manoochehr Shirzaei told The New York Times. "It threatens the health, resilience, and daily survival of entire communities."
Hamzehpour said Thursday that water supply has been restored to the affected areas. "The water distribution network of the affected areas has been restored," he told national television, adding that repair crews completed the work in "less than 12 hours."
Qahramani, the Hormozgan chief justice, said the results of Iran's legal actions in both domestic and international judicial bodies will be announced to the public in the near future.
He confirmed that the attack on civilian water facilities has been formally registered as a war crime case for prosecution.
Press TV