Kuwait summons Iran’s ambassador after fourth day of strikes on water plants

Iranian missile and drone attacks hit Kuwait's power generation and water desalination facilities on Monday for a fourth consecutive day, sparking fires across multiple plants and deepening a humanitarian crisis in a nation where roughly 90 percent of drinking water comes from desalination.facebook+1

Kuwait's Ministry of Electricity, Water and Renewable Energy said the continued Iranian strikes caused fires to break out in numerous facilities, forcing the shutdown of additional power generation units as temperatures in the Gulf soar past 50 degrees Celsius.rediff+1

Escalating Civilian Toll

The attacks on Kuwait's civilian infrastructure began on Saturday, July 18, when Iranian missiles struck the Shuaiba power and desalination complex in Al Ahmadi Governorate. A second facility was hit the following day, deactivating several generation units. Sunday brought a third wave targeting power and water plants in what Kuwait described as a pattern of deliberate aggression against civilian life-support systems.apnews+5

Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has framed the broader campaign as retaliatory strikes against U.S. military assets hosted in Gulf nations, including Camp Arifjan and Ali Al Salem Air Base in Kuwait. But the repeated targeting of desalination infrastructure — essential for survival in the arid Gulf — has drawn sharp international condemnation.aljazeera+1

International Response

UN Secretary-General António Guterres called attacks on "civilian infrastructure in Iran and across the region" unacceptable, with his office reiterating calls for the protection of civilian facilities under international humanitarian law. The Gulf Cooperation Council's secretary general went further, labeling Iran's targeting of infrastructure and civilian facilities in Kuwait, Bahrain, and Jordan as "war crimes requiring immediate international accountability."gcc-sg+2

Kuwait on Tuesday summoned Iran's ambassador and delivered a formal protest note. The Kuwaiti foreign ministry had previously denounced the attacks as a "dangerous escalation" and a "grave violation" of sovereignty, international law, and the UN Charter.kuwaittimes+2

Water Crisis Looms

With desalination capacity degraded, Kuwaiti authorities launched a national energy-saving campaign and activated emergency contingency plans. The Middle East Eye News Corp ↘ 13.24% reported that Kuwait's foreign ministry described the strikes as a direct attack on "vital civilian infrastructure."middleeasteye+1

Under the 1977 Additional Protocols to the Geneva Conventions, drinking water installations are explicitly protected from armed attack, and any targeting of civilian infrastructure must be proven proportionate to a definite military advantage — a threshold legal experts say Iran's strikes clearly fail to meet.aljazeera