Post #5579

🔤🔤🔤🔤2️⃣ “Make no mistake: You won’t gain anything through war crimes. The only real solution is respecting the rights of the Iranian people and ending this dangerous game.” Trump’s expletive-laden post also drew criticism on Capitol Hill. “Happy Easter, America. As you head off to church and celebrate with friends and family, the President of the United States is ranting like an unhinged madman on social media,” the Democratic Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, said on X. He’s threatening possible war crimes and alienating allies. This is who he is, but this is not who we are. Our country deserves so much better.” The destruction on Thursday of the region’s tallest bridge, hailed in Iran as an engineering marvel, pointed to a grim new phase of the war, in which the US president has threatened to throw Iran back to the “stone ages”. During war, international law protects civilians and what are known as civilian objects, such as infrastructure, rules that are enshrined in the Geneva conventions. Oona A Hathaway, a professor of international law at Yale University, said the US president had offered no explanation that would make the civilian objects he has threatened to target into lawful military objectives. She also said other nations had an obligation to ensure respect of the Geneva conventions, and not to aid and abet wrongful acts. “If these threatened attacks were to be carried out, they would constitute war crimes,” said Hathaway. “Immiserating the civilian population for bargaining leverage is not lawful.” Iranian steel manufacturing sites, petrochemicals plants, universities and medical facilities have all been bombed during the joint US-Israeli campaign. About 81,000 civilian sites have been damaged, including 61,000 homes, 19,000 commercial sites, 275 medical centres, and nearly 500 schools, according to Iranian authorities. The Kuwait Petroleum Corporation said a number of its facilities had been targeted by Iranian drone attacks, resulting in fires and “significant material losses”. Kuwait also reported that two power and water desalination plants sustained “significant material damage” after being attacked by Iranian drones. The attack happened on the last day of the holidays to mark Iranian new year, and according to reports many families were picnicking nearby when missiles punched through the middle of the bridge, sending up a giant fireball. The day trippers, who had pitched tents to enjoy the holiday, ran screaming. Local authorities said that 13 people were killed and 95 injured in the attack. The bridge had not yet been opened. It was so far known only as B1, ahead of an inauguration due in the summer. A civil engineer in Iran who worked on other significant infrastructure projects said that recent strikes on civilian infrastructure, all built with indigenous knowledge, had already “made it impossible to conceal hostility toward the Iranian people behind the mask of mere opposition to the government”. But it was the strike on the bridge that was most painful for him, as he said it had no military, nuclear or government link. “The target of this attack was nothing other than Iran’s pride,” he said. “A nation that has achieved such a level of self-sufficiency and productivity cannot be returned to the stone age.” #iran#strait#hormuz#trump#israel#war 📱American Оbserver - Stay up to date on all important events 🇺🇸