Conflict in the Middle East | Infrastructure hit before Trump’s ultimatum expires

(Tehran) Bridges and a highway were hit on Tuesday in Iran, according to local authorities, with Israel and the United States appearing to carry out their threat to attack civilian infrastructure without waiting for the expiration of Donald Trump’s ultimatum to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

As the American ultimatum ends at 8 p.m. (Eastern time), the Israeli army announced that it had carried out “a vast series of strikes targeting dozens of infrastructure sites belonging to the Iranian terrorist regime.”

In this 39^e day of war, bombings targeted the province of Alboz, in the north of the country, according to local media. Eighteen people were killed in a residential area, including two children.

Two bridges were also hit south of Tehran, including one in Kashan, where two people were killed, and another near Qom. And a major highway linking Tabriz was closed in the north of the country after an attack, again according to the Iranian press.

Train services to and from Masshad (Northeast), the country’s second city, were canceled after the Israeli military urged Iranians to refrain from traveling by train until 1:30 p.m. Eastern time.

Finally, strikes were carried out against the island of Kharg in the Gulf, a hotspot for the Iranian oil industry, according to the Mehr agency and a journalist from the American news site Axios.

“I was terrified of my own people”

In Tehran, Iranians seem torn between fear and a certain indifference to the warnings of the American president.

“I’m terrified, and everyone in this country should be too,” Metanat, a 27-year-old student, told AFP, saying she lost a classmate in an attack. “Some people deride Trump and his threats,” but “it’s a war and there’s nothing funny about it.”

Morteza Hamidi, a 62-year-old retiree, displays “sadness and pessimism about the future of Iran”, but brushes aside the new ultimatum. Donald Trump “has changed the dates so many times that we are now impervious to his threats,” he said.

On Monday, Donald Trump warned that “the entire country could be destroyed in a single night.” He said he was ready to strike Iranian energy plants and bridges if the Islamic Republic did not unblock Hormuz – a sea route through which some 20% of the world’s crude previously transited.

In response, the Revolutionary Guards, Iran’s ideological army, threatened actions against infrastructure that “will deprive the United States and its allies of oil and gas in the region for years.”

“We have shown great restraint so far in a spirit of good neighborliness, but these reservations are now lifted,” they warned, before adding: “If the American terrorist army crosses the red lines, our response will extend beyond the region”.

2 million per ship

In the region, calls to find a diplomatic solution are increasing, even if Iran and the United States have rejected a mediation proposal put forward by several countries, including Pakistan.

“The positive and constructive efforts made by Pakistan […] to end the war are approaching a critical and delicate stage,” the Iranian ambassador to Islamabad, Reza Amiri Moghadam, wrote on X.

According to Axios, mediating states have submitted the idea of ​​a 45-day ceasefire.

According to the Iranian news agency IRNA, Tehran demands “an end to conflicts in the region, a protocol for safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz”, as well as “reconstruction and the lifting of sanctions”.

Iran would be ready in exchange to lift the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, by imposing a passage fee of 2 million dollars per ship, which would be shared with the Sultanate of Oman, located on the other side of the seaway, wrote the New York Times.

He would use these revenues to rebuild infrastructure destroyed by Israeli-American strikes, rather than demanding direct compensation.

But for Sina Toossi, of the Center for International Policy in Washington, there is little chance that the destruction of new infrastructure in Iran will change Tehran’s attitude, because “the war has already crossed this threshold.”

Iran “will not cede its vital interests, above all its control of the Strait of Hormuz, whatever the cost,” writes the analyst.

In retaliation, it continues to strike daily the Gulf countries accused of helping the United States.

In eastern Saudi Arabia, the giant Jubail petrochemical complex was hit, a witness told AFP, a few hours after similar facilities in Iran were struck.

“If the escalation continues […]we will eventually find ourselves in a situation where it can no longer be controlled. And we are very close to this point,” said the spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Qatar, Majed al-Ansari.