Iran says US-Israeli attacks have killed five people and wounded 170 others at the Mahshahr Petrochemical Zone. The attacks have targeted more than 30 universities since the beginning of the war.
Kuwait says a drone attack has sparked a fire at an oil complex, without causing injuries.
Israel bombs southern Lebanon, killing five people in the town of Maarakeh.
Another Israeli soldier has been killed in clashes with Hezbollah, while hundreds of Israeli antiwar protesters have rallied in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Haifa.
Gulf countries across from Iran could suffer from the radioactive impact of a more intense US strike on Iran’s Bushehr nuclear site, a Middle East expert and former US negotiator warned.
“It’s a terrifying event,” said Alan Eyre, distinguished diplomatic fellow with the Middle East Institute.
“If there is going to be a nuclear catastrophe or spillage in Bushehr, the Gulf countries on the other side of the Persian Gulf are going to be the first to suffer both in terms of ambient radiation and also radiation of the water, which will affect their desalination abilities.”
Eyre, who was among the US officials who negotiated the 2015 nuclear deal, pointed out that the prevailing “wind patterns and tidal patterns” in the Gulf would likely mean that the dispersal of radiation would likely go west and away from Iran.
“Studies and academics have shown that the concentration of the radioactive material going westward might not be sufficient to imperil life like Chernobyl, but more serious is the threat of radioactive nuclear tide in the water,” he warned.
“Once you get radioactive nuclear activity in the water, that precludes desalination. And as we know, the Gulf countries rely almost exclusively on desalination plants to get their water.”
