"Operation Epstein Fury" - US and Israel Unprovoked invasion of Iran

[SvennoJ]

Zkuq said:

SvennoJ said:

What about hitting the oil depot and desalination plant in Iran? Causing massive health issues for the general population as well as starving them from water. https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/customary-ihl/v2/rule54

Plus a mistake is still a crime under IHL. Intentional or not, failure to distinguish, proportionality, non combatents
https://casebook.icrc.org/law/principle-distinction

It was a pre-emptive strike, by definition there were no combatants yet, The entire strike was illegal.

Other schools and hospitals are mostly hit from nearby explosions with 2,000 pound bombs, those that Biden deemed illegal to use in Gaza and the only ones he blocked shipments to Israel for. Yet the oil depot was not a mistake or 'collateral' damage.

Besides being a dual-use item, it's also a huge ecological disaster.

Hitting desalination plants is pure evil.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/08/world/middleeast/desalination-plants-iran-bahrain.html

Hey, I'm only trying to differentiate between different degrees of terrible. It's all still terrible but being terrible because you want to cause suffering and being terrible because you don't care about collateral damage are different degrees of bad to me, especially because the former probably leads to even more bad stuff happening. Like I said, I'm in no way in favour of this war and think it's terrible anyway.

The desalination plant thing sounds like it might go in the same category as 'valid' targets in a hospital, i.e. not terrorizing the populace per se but a terrible thing to do anyway.

I'm not blaming you, and no doubt Trump + US army started with good intentions. They wanted another 'success' as in Venezuela which is likely how Netanyahu convinced Trump this was going to go. (Of course who knows what the long term effects are in Venezuela, Israel got what they wanted out of it, oil shipments to Israel resumed) Quick decapitation of the regime, people rise up and put the US friendly shaw in power. That's Trump's thinking.

But good intentions mean nothing in war and the first huge mistake was relying on AI + Israeli intelligence. Not doing the legwork to make sure what is targeted is really what the AI targeting says it is. 

Desalination plant (water infrastructure) is off limits just as hospitals and schools. Civilian infrastructure in general. So even though it started out as a targeting mistake, now we're on to fully fledged war crimes and Iran is paying in kind, hitting the desalination plant in Bahrain. 

Article 54(2) of the 1977 Additional Protocol I provides:
It is prohibited to attack, destroy, remove, or render useless objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population, such as foodstuffs, agricultural areas for the production of 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.

How quickly escalation gets out of control :(

IHL died with Gaza, the bit that was left of it.