Iran threatens to ‘completely’ close Strait of Hormuz and hit power plants

ARAD, Israel — The United States and Iran threatened to target critical infrastructure Sunday as the war in the Middle East, now in its fourth week, puts lives and livelihoods at risk throughout the region.

Iran said the Strait of Hormuz, crucial to oil and other exports, would be “completely closed” immediately if the U.S. follows up on President Trump’s threat to attack its power plants. Trump late Saturday set a 48-hour deadline to open the strait.

Israeli leaders visited Arad, one of two southern communities near a secretive nuclear research site struck by Iranian missiles late Saturday, with scores of people wounded. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said it was a “miracle” no one was killed. Israel detected more Iranian missiles fired toward the area Sunday evening.

Netanyahu claimed Israel and the U.S. were well on their way to achieving their war goals. The aims have ranged from weakening Iran’s nuclear program, missile program and support for armed proxies to enabling the Iranian people to overthrow the theocracy.

The developments signaled the war, which the U.S. and Israel launched Feb. 28, was moving in a dangerous new direction, despite Trump’s comment last week he was considering “winding down” the bombardment. The war has killed more than 2,000 people, rattled the global economy and sent oil prices surging.

Iranian-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon claimed responsibility for an airstrike Sunday that killed a man in northern Israel while gulf Arab states — including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — said they were intercepting fresh barrages of new Iranian strikes.

Energy and desalination plants are threatened

Iran has practically closed the Strait of Hormuz, a choke point connecting the Persian Gulf to the rest of the world, while claiming safe passage for vessels from countries other than its enemies. Roughly one-fifth of global oil supply passes through it, but attacks on ships have stopped nearly all tanker traffic.

Trump said if Iran didn’t open the strait, the U.S. would destroy its “various POWER PLANTS, STARTING WITH THE BIGGEST ONE FIRST!”

Iranian parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf responded on X that if Iran’s power plants and infrastructure were targeted, then vital infrastructure across the region — including energy and water desalination facilities — would be considered legitimate targets and “irreversibly destroyed.”

Qalibaf later added that “entities that finance the US military budget are legitimate targets.”

Attacks on power plants would be “inherently indiscriminate and clearly disproportionate,” Iran’s United Nations ambassador wrote to the Security Council, according to the state-run IRNA news agency.

Nuclear concerns

Iran said its strikes in the Negev Desert late Saturday were in retaliation for an earlier attack on Iran’s main nuclear enrichment site in Natanz, according to state-run media.

Tehran praised the attack as a show of strength, even as Israel’s military asserted that Iranian missile launches have gradually decreased in frequency since the war began.

Southern Israel’s main hospital, Soroka Medical Center, received at least 175 wounded from Arad and Dimona, the other Israeli town hit, its deputy director Roy Kessous told the Associated Press.

Israel is widely believed to possess nuclear weapons, though it doesn’t confirm or deny their existence.

Israel denied responsibility for hitting Natanz on Saturday while the Iranian judiciary’s official news agency, Mizan, said there was no leakage. The Pentagon declined to comment on the strike.

The International Atomic Energy Agency has said the bulk of Iran’s estimated 972 pounds of enriched uranium is elsewhere, beneath the rubble at its Isfahan facility.

Iran says strikes also hit hospital

Iran said that strikes hit a hospital in Andimeshk. The Health Ministry reported patients and doctors were evacuated to another city.

Iran’s death toll in the war surpassed 1,500 on Saturday, state media reported, citing the ministry. In Israel, 15 people have been killed by Iranian strikes. More than a dozen civilians in the occupied West Bank and gulf Arab states have been killed in strikes.

A Qatari military helicopter crash on Saturday, blamed on a technical malfunction, killed all seven aboard, Qatari authorities said.

Civilian killed in Israel

An Israeli civilian was killed in his car in the northern town of Misgav Am in what Israel’s military originally said appeared to be a rocket attack. It later said it was looking into the possibility that the death was caused by Israeli soldiers’ fire.

Hezbollah launched strikes on Israel soon after the war began, calling it retaliation for the killing of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Israel then targeted Hezbollah in deadly airstrikes and expanded its ground presence in southern Lebanon.

Israel on Sunday expanded its list of targets to include all bridges over the Litani River, which Defense Minister Israel Katz said Hezbollah is using to move fighters and weapons into the south. Israel later struck the Qasmiyeh bridge near the coastal city of Tyre, giving an hour’s warning. Destroying bridges further isolates residents from the rest of Lebanon.

Katz also ordered the military to accelerate its destruction of Lebanese homes near Israel’s northern border.

Lebanese authorities say Israel’s strikes have killed more than 1,000 people and displaced more than 1 million. Meanwhile, Hezbollah has fired hundreds of rockets into Israel.

Bernstein, Metz and Magdy write for the Associated Press and reported from Arad; Ramallah, West Bank; and Cairo, respectively. AP writers Melanie Lidman in Tel Aviv; Koral Saeed in Abu Snan, Israel; and Isabel Debre in Beirut contributed to this report.