Iran’s deepening water crisis threatens 35 million as economy buckles under US pressure, mounting domestic strain

Iran’s deepening water crisis threatens 35 million as economy buckles under US pressure, mounting domestic strain

 Ailin Vilches Arguello,

As talks with the United States over a possible deal to end the war remain uncertain, Iran’s economy is under mounting strain, with prolonged water shortages, pressure on energy infrastructure, and slowing industrial output deepening what authorities describe as an “economic war.”

With Iran entering the summer months amid a deepening water and electricity crisis, government officials estimate that around 35 million people will face water shortages, intensifying concerns over deteriorating living conditions, mounting economic strain, and daily hardship across the country.

On Monday, Issa Bozorgzadeh, a spokesman for the country’s water industry, reported that rainfall has fallen “below normal” levels across 11 provinces, warning that Tehran is among the worst affected as it enters its sixth consecutive year of drought.

Now, Iranian authorities are urging citizens to cut consumption and adopt stricter usage habits, pointing to deep structural failures in the water and power sectors as public frustration rises over supply disruptions, mismanagement, and declining living standards.

Officials have also announced planned summer power outages, warning that the deepening energy crisis could lead to factory shutdowns, reduced industrial output, rising unemployment, and higher prices.

On Sunday, Arash Najafi, head of the Energy Commission of Iran’s Chamber of Commerce, noted that household, commercial, and office blackouts are likely to continue daily throughout the summer, while the industrial sector will continue to be targeted for power cuts” or “will continue to bear the brunt of power cuts.

“The Islamic Republic will be forced to impose electricity consumption restrictions for about 120 days, and given the lack of effective means for people to significantly reduce usage, this will result in widespread blackouts,” the Iranian official said in a statement.

Even as the crisis continues to weigh heavily on the Iranian people, a nationwide internet blackout remains in place, having exceeded 1,728 hours as of Monday, after authorities imposed the shutdown more than two months ago, effectively isolating millions of Iranians from independent reporting on the war and access to global news

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Iran demands temporary reopening of trade routes amid food shortages, surging inflation

Iran demands temporary reopening of trade routes amid food shortages, surging inflation

World Israel News Staff

Iran is seeking a temporary deal with the United States securing the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz in order to alleviate worsening shortages in the Islamic Republic, according to an Israel Hayom report.

The United States rejected an Iranian request to begin reopening the Strait of Hormuz to Iranian ships and tankers after Tehran’s response to a proposed ceasefire document left its previous positions largely unchanged.

The Iranian response centered on a roughly one-month ceasefire that would allow negotiations over its nuclear program and other issues while also calling for the gradual reopening of the Strait of Hormuz.

Iran demanded that Washington take the first steps toward reopening the strait.

Iranian officials said the move was needed because the country lacks enough storage capacity for crude oil, raising fears that oil could leak from wells and cause major environmental damage. Satellite images reportedly show a large oil slick near Kharg Island.

Tehran also cited worsening shortages of basic goods caused by the blockade on ships entering Iran, as well as a deepening cash shortage that has made it harder to buy wheat, medicine and medical equipment.

In contacts surrounding the official delivery of the document, Iranian officials described a deteriorating domestic situation and warned of a real risk of hunger in parts of the country.

The economic pressure has also hit the labor market. Unemployment in Iran has reportedly climbed above 50%, while many of those still employed are earning very little. The US Treasury Department confirmed reports that civil servants are not receiving salaries.

According to US intelligence, large parts of Iran’s self-employed workforce, particularly workers dependent on the internet and advanced industries, have lost major portions of their income and are effectively unemployed.

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Board of Peace backs expansion of Israeli control in Gaza as Hamas violates ceasefire

Board of Peace backs expansion of Israeli control in Gaza as Hamas violates ceasefire

World Israel News Staff

The US-backed Board of Peace has granted approval to the expansion of Israeli control over the Gaza Strip, in a move signaling the organization’s growing frustration with Hamas’ refusal to accept disarmament.

Israel has in recent weeks expanded the area of the Gaza Strip under its military control, moving beyond the ceasefire’s original “Yellow Line” to a broader “Orange Line” as international efforts to secure Hamas’ disarmament remain stalled.

A senior Western diplomat told Israel Hayom that the move was approved by the US-led Board of Peace after Hamas failed to meet a timetable for laying down its weapons.

The expansion adds some 34 square kilometers, or just over 13 square miles, to Israeli security zones and leaves the IDF in control of roughly 64% of Gaza, according to the report.

“No one fell asleep at the wheel here,” the diplomat told Israel Hayom. “Further steps will be taken as long as Hamas continues to violate the understandings.”

Reuters reported last month that Israel had quietly distributed updated Gaza maps to aid groups showing an expanded restricted area marked by an orange line. COGAT, the Israeli military agency handling civilian affairs in the territories, said the boundaries were updated “in accordance with the operational situational assessment” to allow humanitarian work while protecting personnel in a complex battlefield environment.

The Israeli move follows weeks of deadlock over the next phase of the Gaza ceasefire framework.

The Board of Peace plan calls for Hamas to disarm over eight months, permit the destruction of its tunnel network and allow a Palestinian technocratic committee to assume security control, with a full IDF withdrawal only after verification that Gaza is free of weapons.

A document obtained by The Times of Israel said the Board of Peace does not intend to hold Israel to the October 2025 truce terms if Hamas fails to accept the disarmament framework. The document said such a refusal would render Israel’s commitments “null and void” after a timeframe determined by the board.

On the ground, Palestinian officials say Israel has carried out engineering work and demolitions along the expanded zone, further reducing the territory under Hamas control.

Inside the 300-page report Hamas hoped no one would uncover

Inside the 300-page report Hamas hoped no one would uncover

RUTH MARKS EGLASH

More than two and a half years after Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, a specially appointed Civil Commission on Crimes by Hamas against Women and Children published on Tuesday the most comprehensive report to date documenting the terror group’s systematic use of sexual violence, rape, and “kinocide” during the assault.

Among the key findings of the 300-page report are examples of gang-rape, sexual violence to terrorize families, and even some cases where relatives and victims were forced to perform sexual acts on each other.

“I see this report as a watershed moment, a moment of before and after, because once it is released, it will no longer be a question of whether this happened, but of what the consequences are,” Cochav Elkayam-Levy, chair of the commission, told The Jerusalem Post in a special interview ahead of the report’s release.

She said that her team, composed of lawyers, researchers, and medical and forensic professionals, worked tirelessly to “ensure that they [the victims] will be questioned no more, that they will be silenced no more.”

Titled Silenced No More, the report, which will form the basis of a historical archive of images and testimonies of the brutal offensive, comes amid ongoing denial or downplaying by top human rights and women’s rights officials and activists, who continue to refute that Hamas terrorists carried out a well-planned and systematic attack, using sexual violence to terrorize their victims.

“They filmed the victims to make sure that the world knew what was happening,” noted Elkayam-Levy, pointing out that the digital documentation shared by the terrorists themselves on October 7, forms the basis of the report.

“We felt deeply obligated to expose everything,” she said. “This was sexual terror in the most exceptional cruelty, and I think one important aspect of it was the digital documentation, the fact that the crimes were glorified.”

Elkayam-Levy points to the video of 22-year-old Shani Louk, who was kidnapped from the Nova Festival, lying semi-naked and twisted on the flatbed of a pick-up truck surrounded by armed terrorists beating and spitting on her dead body as one example.

Yet, despite such early evidence, as well as compelling testimonies from eye-witnesses and first responders, many so-called professionals around the world refused to recognize that sexual violence had taken place or that it had been used as a tool of terror.

“That was the moment that broke us all,” Elkayam-Levy said. “It wasn’t just denied by social media trolls. It was denied by people like Professor Judith Butler, who said, ‘I’m not sure; I haven’t seen the evidence of the rape.’ When is a rape victim ever questioned in that way by a feminist scholar? When do we ever ask, ‘I haven’t seen the evidence of your rape?’”

Elkayam-Levy admitted that “sexual violence is always the most denied crime… but [in this instance] we saw another level of denial by those who are supposed to believe, and that made us understand that we have to create something completely different.”

The legal scholar and human rights advocate said that the commission has worked to make sure to collect and document all the materials “in the most meticulous way.”

“We used reports that were written previously [for guidance] for reference on how to show the evidence we had accumulation and we put everything together, archived and preserved each and every piece of information, in such a way that those crimes will never be denied,” she said.

“We cannot start fighting this [denial] if we don’t expose what happened,” said Elkayam-Levy, adding that among the most disturbing findings were cases where “family members were sexually abused or threatened in front of one another… forced to commit sexual acts on each other.”

Alongside the systematic sexual violence that became painfully apparent through their research, the civil commission experts also coined a totally new concept: kinocide.

Elkayam-Levy describes it as the “systematic torture and violence against families… kin, as a familial relation, and cide, as in the systematicity of it.”

“While we were looking and analyzing the videos, we started seeing the pattern,” she said. “You start seeing videos of families and the moments when the terrorists entered the houses… sometimes, they took the phones of the victim themselves and started broadcasting their torture… when you see the father or the mother devastated, screaming, the children screaming or begging for their life … these moments made us understand that we’re seeing something that needs to be defined.”

Despite the overwhelming evidence that systematic sexual violence, rape, and kinocide took place on October 7, Elkayam-Levy said there continues to be denial, including from some officials in the United Nations, who refuse to accept that such atrocities took place.

She believes that such denials have helped to fuel antisemitism globally but, she said, she is hopeful that exposing these crimes will aid in supporting victims of rape everywhere, who, even in 2026, are not automatically believed.

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Another U.S. refinery goes up in flames: 45 major refinery explosions/fires reported over the last month and a half

Another U.S. refinery goes up in flames: 45 major refinery explosions/fires reported over the last month and a half

Leo Hohmann

More than 45 oil and gas refineries have reported fires and explosions globally in the last month and a half, marking a significant increase over what’s considered “normal” in the way of industrial accidents.

The drastic uptick in explosions is being racked up to warfare in places like Russia and “accidents” in the United States, Mexico, Australia, Romania and India.

TRT World reports:

“Taken together, they point to an energy system operating under unusual pressure at a moment of global instability.”

On Monday, May 11, firefighters in Tulsa, Oklahoma, responded to a fire at the HF Sinclair refinery around 11 a.m., with dramatic video showing massive flames and thick black smoke rising from the facility. Officials have not yet determined the cause of the fire, and no information has been released about possible injuries.

Just a few days before that, on May 8, an explosion and fire occurred at the Chalmette Refining facility, located about 10 miles east of New Orleans, Louisiana. The fire was attributed to an unspecified mechanical failure in an operating unit. Cause undetermined.

The explosion sent thick smoke into the air, rattled homes across parts of St. Bernard Parish, and sparked concerns from residents about why warning alarms did not go off after the blast.

Another explosion and fire occurred at the Valero oil refinery in Port Arthur, Texas, on March 23, 2026.

And these explosions aren’t limited to petro-chemical plants in the United States.

In the last 45 days, more than 45 oil and gas facilities worldwide have reported fires and explosions.

The incidents have occurred across multiple regions, highlighting a widespread issue in the energy sector.

There is almost never a clearly determined cause for these fires and explosions. Are the world’s energy facilities under attack, possibly involving sabotage, a type of fifth-generation warfare against food and energy? That’s the question some are starting to ask.

The increase in fires and explosions leads to tighter energy supplies and higher prices, affecting both consumers and industries dependent on these resources at the same time supplies are already at historically low levels due to the war in Iran and closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

To compensate for the world losing 13 million barrels a day of oil going through the Strait of Hormuz, many countries have released oil from their strategic reserves, which will at some point run dry. And this isn’t the only war affecting the production and distribution of oil and natural gas. Ukraine has been blowing up Russian oil refineries and storage facilities at a steady rate for the last several months, using its sophisticated drone arsenal to take more than 25 percent of Russian oil production off the market.

Over the last two months, refineries and fuel storage facilities around the world have caught fire due to war (Russia, UAE, Qatar) or alleged accidents (Australia, the United States, India and Mexico), adding more pressure to stressed oil and gas supply chains.

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