International Humanitarian Law prohibits the attack, destruction, or rendering useless of objects indispensable to civilian survival.
During what has been described as tit-for-tat attacks, on June 10, the US bombed the drinking water supply in the Bemani district of Sirik, Hormozgan province, Iran. The 500-cubic-meter tank and a 2,000-cubic-meter reservoir provided water for 20,000 Iranians. “Targeting civilian water infrastructure raises serious humanitarian concerns,” the Iranian Consulate in Mumbai, India said. “The incident occurred amid a wave of reported explosions in Iran’s south, including several powerful blasts heard in Bandar Abbas and the activation of air defence systems across Jask, Qeshm Island and Bandar Abbas,” Aljazeera reported.
International Humanitarian Law (IHL) prohibits the attack, destruction, or rendering useless of objects indispensable to civilian survival, including water supplies and installations. “International legal standards, notably the Geneva Conventions and their Additional Protocols, explicitly prohibit attacks on water sources that are vital for civilian populations. These protections seek to prevent water sources from becoming targets, which could deny access to safe water and jeopardize public health,” notes the Rectilo Legal Insights Blog.
Furthermore, according to Article 54 of the Geneva Convention,
It is prohibited to attack, destroy, remove, or render useless objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population, such as foodstuffs, crops, livestock, drinking water installations and supplies, and irrigation works, for the specific purpose of denying them for their sustenance value to the civilian population or to the adverse Party, whatever the motive, whether in order to starve out civilians, to cause them to move away, or for any other motive.
US Destroyed Iraqi Water Supply During Gulf War
During the first Gulf War, the United States “deliberately bombed Iraq’s water system,” Thomas J. Nagy, a professor at George Washington University, wrote in September, 2001. The Bush administration, “with malice aforethought,” “destroyed, removed, or rendered useless” Iraq’s ‘drinking water installations and supplies’… They amount to a systematic effort to, in the DIA’s own words, ‘fully degrade’ Iraq’s water sources.”
Nagy found declassified documents at the website of the Office of the Special Assistant for Gulf War Illnesses that detailed the effort to degrade Iraq’s water supply and commit a serious violation of humanitarian law. The documents included “Iraq Water Treatment Vulnerability,” “Disease Information,” “Disease Outbreaks in Iraq,” “Medical Problems in Iraq,” “Status of Disease at Refugee Camps,” “Health Conditions in Iraq,” and “Iraq: Assessment of Current Health Threats and Capabilities.”
Then Representative Cynthia McKinney, a Democrat from Georgia (subsequently removed from Congress), referred to the Iraq Water Treatment Vulnerabilities document, and said, “Attacking the Iraqi public drinking water supply flagrantly targets civilians and is a violation of the Geneva Convention and of the fundamental laws of civilized nations.”
In 2000, Ohio Democrat Representative Tony Hall wrote to then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright “about the profound effects of the increasing deterioration of Iraq’s water supply and sanitation systems on its children’s health.” Albright, it should be remembered, declared that the preventable deaths of half a million Iraqi children during medieval sanctions imposed on Iraq by the Clinton administration were a price worth paying.
Rep. Hall wrote:
The prime killer of children under five years of age—diarrheal diseases—has reached epidemic proportions, and they now strike four times more often than they did in 1990. . . . Holds on contracts for the water and sanitation sector are a prime reason for the increases in sickness and death. Of the eighteen contracts, all but one hold was placed by the U.S. government. The contracts are for purification chemicals, chlorinators, chemical dosing pumps, water tankers, and other equipment. . . . I urge you to weigh your decision against the disease and death that are the unavoidable result of not having safe drinking water and minimum levels of sanitation.
During more than a decade of sanctions imposed on the people of Iraq between two invasions, the “United States has deliberately pursued a policy of destroying the water treatment system of Iraq, knowing full well the cost in Iraqi lives. The United Nations has estimated that more than 500,000 Iraqi children have died as a result of sanctions, and that 5,000 Iraqi children continue to die every month for this reason,” Nagy wrote.
Israel Targets Civilian Infrastructure
Israel, guilty of committing numerous violations of humanitarian law, has also attacked water resources. On May 26, the IDF bombed the Qaraoun dam, a strategic national infrastructure asset, in the southern region of the Beqaa Valley in Lebanon. The Qaraoun reservoir or lake provides drinking and irrigation water for Southern Lebanon, in addition to hydroelectric power. The Paul Arcache hydroelectric power plant, drawing water from the Qaraoun lake, is the largest hydroelectric plant in Lebanon.
“The Litani River Authority said that the perimeter of the dam in Qaraoun was subjected to ‘repeated attacks’… adding that roads leading to the structure, as well as associated facilities, were targeted,” Al-Monitor reported. Lebanon’s National Litani River Authority warned of a “national disaster” in the event that the dam was destroyed. Israel claimed Hezbollah had “been spotted attempting to interfere with the dam’s operations and were subsequently targeted,” according to The New Arab.
Israel has targeted and “destroyed vast swathes of critical civilian infrastructure and public services,” reports Human Rights Watch. According to Ramzi Kaiss, Lebanon researcher at Human Rights Watch, “Israel’s deliberate demolition of civilian homes and infrastructure and its use of explosive weapons in populated areas are making it impossible for many residents to return to their villages and houses” in Southern Lebanon. “Even if their houses are still there, how can they return when there is no water, electricity, telecommunications, or health infrastructure?” he asked. The United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner said in March:
In many instances, Israeli airstrikes have destroyed entire residential buildings in dense urban environments, with multiple members of the same family, including women and children, often killed together. Such attacks raise serious concerns under international humanitarian law. People displaced by the fighting and living in tents along Beirut’s seafront have also been hit. And in recent days, at least 16 medical staff have been killed.
Violations of Humanitarian Law in Iran
The United States and Israel have also targeted and destroyed civilian infrastructure in Iran. In March, Iran’s Red Crescent Society, part of the international humanitarian network, said US-Israeli airstrikes had damaged or destroyed more than 90,000 homes, about half of them in Tehran, The Malaysian Reserve reported.
The indiscriminate bombing and killing of civilians is considered “collective punishment,” which is prohibited under international law and could constitute war crimes under the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949. The United States and Israel have escalated their targeting of civilian infrastructure in Iran by indiscriminately bombing its residential areas, universities, schools, hospitals, factories, water supply systems, dairy plants, and historical and religious buildings. Since February 28, the Iranian Red Crescent Society (IRCS) reported that over 300 health centers, 760 schools, and more than 90,000 residential units have been targeted in US-Israeli attacks on Iran.
Both Israel and the United States have contempt for international law. In January, President Trump declared his power as commander in chief is limited only by his own morality, dismissing international law as a constraint, The New York Times reported. Pete Hegseth, the self-described Secretary of War, dismissed the “tepid legality” of international law in favor of “maximum lethality.”
The Trump administration is not alone in this regard. In language eerily reminiscent of the war in Gaza, Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz has threatened to demolish homes across southern Lebanon and block hundreds of thousands of civilians from returning.
The destruction of the water supply for thousands of Iranians is only the latest violation of the norms of international law. Israel and the United States may be considered the top violators of human rights treaties and standards, including but not limited to the Geneva Conventions of 1949, the United Nations Charter, various arms trade and export obligations, and, in the case of Gaza, the Convention Against Genocide.
Article posted with permission from Kurt Nimmo
