50 killed, 500 hurt in US attacks this month: Iran

Iran’s Health Ministry says US attacks on the country since July 6 have killed at least 50 people and wounded more than 500.

Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi says Iran has suspended its commitments to the MoU amid US attacks.

Iran’s national water company says some 10,000 people across 20 villages are without water after overnight US attacks. Iran’s army says it has hit US assets in Bahrain, Jordan and Kuwait following the latest round of US strikes. Kuwait says Iranian attacks have targeted two power and water plants.

Three US air strikes have targeted areas near Sirik in Iran’s Hormozgan province today, reports Iran’s semi-official Mehr news agency.

The latest was at 16:40 (13:10 GMT), reported Mehr.
Hormozgan’s governor said that no civilian casualties had been recorded.

Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has spoken by phone with his Emirati counterpart Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Russia’s Ria Novosti news agency cited Russia’s foreign ministry as saying.

The ministry said the two officials exchanged views on the situation in the Gulf, and both stressed the need for an immediate ceasefire between the US and Iran and a return to negotiations.

The head of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), Jassim al-Budaiwi, has accused Iran of carrying out “war crimes” in its latest attacks on Bahrain, Kuwait and Jordan, saying they intentionally targeted infrastructure and civilian facilities.

“Iran’s actions constitute a highly dangerous escalation, a grave violation of international law and the United Nations (UN) Charter, as well as war crimes requiring international accountability and prosecution, given the deliberate targeting of infrastructure and civilian facilities in flagrant violation of all international norms and conventions and a persistent determination to destabilise regional security and stability,” al-Budaiwi said in a statement shared by the GCC’s general secretariat.

Iran is using Kuwait as ‘an example’ of what it can do in retaliation, Within Iran, there is “a gradual lack of feeling that any kind of restraint is going to be beneficial to negotiations”, Roxane Farmanfarmian, a professor of Middle East politics at the University of Cambridge, tells Al Jazeera.

“I think we’re seeing from the op-eds that we’re reading in Iran’s newspapers and media, that there is a hardening generally in feeling that Iran needs to hit hard, to sustain and show endurance, but also to affect American ability to maintain too much of a time on this war.

“I think what we’re seeing is that they’re using Kuwait, in particular, as an example of what they can do in retaliation.

“The US is clearly hitting the south in Iran and hitting airports, desalination plants and bridges, and so the same kinds of things are being hit now in Kuwait to show what kind of effect Iran really can have on those countries that are hosting American bases.”

Iranian society ‘caught between both sides’ amid attacks on infrastructure
Ali Fathollah-Nejad, founder and director at the Center for Middle East and Global Order, says the US is trying to act as a “military guardian” for the Strait of Hormuz through its “sustained military campaign” on Iranian infrastructure sites.

“From the perspective of the US military, certainly, its targets are dual-use. So those could also be used for military logistics and so forth, but then again the reality is those infrastructures are also used for civilian purposes as well,” Fathollah-Nejad told Al Jazeera.

“So the Iranian population and society are caught in between the two sides and are held hostage also by the kind of strategy that is employed by the Islamic republic by retargeting the Strait of Hormuz.”

Six people have been killed by an Israeli air strike that hit an apartment in a building on Naser Street, west of Gaza City, reports our colleague Hani Mahmoud in Gaza.

Kuwait’s civilian infrastructure is certainly being hit hard by the IRGC.
A power and desalination plant was hit for a second day. That is significant because that is critical infrastructure for Kuwait. The country doesn’t have permanent lakes or rivers. It has very little rain. So, 90 percent of its drinking water comes from seawater desalination.

Two plants have been attacked over the past few days, out of nine major desalination plants in the country, according to Kuwaiti figures.

This has been a significant attack and will have a significant impact.