Bahrain says Iran hit a desalination plant, stoking fears of attacks on civilian sites

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Bahrain accused Iran of striking a desalination plant on Sunday, raising fears civilian infrastructure may become fair game in a nine-day-old war, as Iran’s president vowed to expand its attacks on American targets across the region in the face of intense U.S. and Israeli airstrikes.

A late-night Israeli strike on an oil facility covered Iran’s capital, Tehran, in smoke on Sunday, while Israel renewed its attacks in Lebanon. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to press ahead with the campaign, which has rippled across the region and appears to have no end in sight.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian threatened on Sunday to step up attacks on American targets across the Middle East. He appeared to be backtracking from conciliatory comments toward his Gulf neighbors on Saturday. Those comments, in which he apologized for attacks on their soil, were quickly contradicted by Iranian hard-liners.

In Lebanon, Israeli strikes pushed the death toll there to above 300 after Israel ordered large swaths of the country to evacuate ahead of an offensive aimed at stamping out the Iran-backed Hezbollah.

The war, which erupted on Feb. 28 after joint U.S.-Israeli strikes hit Iran, has so far killed at least 1,230 people in the Islamic Republic, more than 300 in Lebanon and around a dozen in Israel, according to officials. Six U.S. troops have also been killed.

The conflict has since spread across the region, rattling global markets, disrupting air travel and leaving Iran’s leadership weakened by hundreds of Israeli and American airstrikes.

“When we are attacked, we have no choice but to respond. The more pressure they impose on us, the stronger our response will naturally be,” Pezeshkian said in video comments Sunday. “Our Iran, our country, will not bow easily in the face of bullying, oppression or aggression — and it never has.”

The remarks, starkly different in tone, came a day after Pezeshkian said Iran regretted regional concerns caused by Iranian strikes and urged neighboring states not to take part in U.S. and Israeli attacks against Iran.

Pezeshkian assured neighboring Gulf states Sunday that Iran wasn’t looking to battle them and called them brothers, accusing the U.S. of trying to pit countries against one another.

Iranian hard-liners quickly contradicted those remarks. Judiciary chief Gholam Hossein Mohseni-Ejei wrote on X: “The geography of some countries in the region — both overtly and covertly — is in the hands of the enemy, and those points are used against our country in acts of aggression. Intense attacks on these targets will continue.”

Mohseni-Ejei and Pezeshkian are part of a three-member leadership council that has overseen Iran since a strike killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei early in the war.

Pezeshkian’s remarks Sunday reinforced earlier pledges that Iran would not surrender despite U.S. and Israeli threats, with U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying their aim remains the replacement of Iran’s leaders.

“We’re not looking to settle,” Trump told reporters Saturday aboard Air Force One. “They’d like to settle. We’re not looking to settle.”

Iran and its Persian Gulf neighbor Bahrain said Sunday strikes hit civilian infrastructure.

Bahrain accused Iran of indiscriminately attacking civilian targets and damaging one of its desalination plants, though it didn’t say supplies have gone offline. The island nation, home to the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet, has been among the countries targeted by Iranian drones and missiles. Attacks have hit hotels, ports and residential towers and killed at least one person.

The desalination plant strike came after Iran said a U.S. airstrike damaged an Iranian desalination plant. Abbas Araghchi, the country’s foreign minister, said the strike on Qeshm Island in the Strait of Hormuz had cut into the water supply for 30 villages. He warned that in doing so “the U.S. set this precedent, not Iran.”

Neither the U.S. Central Command and Israel’s military had immediate comment on the plant.

Iran also said on Sunday that overnight strikes from Israel had hit four oil storage tankers and a petroleum transfer terminal, killing four people. Witnesses in Tehran said the smoke was so thick that fire that engulfed the north Tehran oil depot that it felt as though the sun had not risen. The city’s governor urged people to wear masks outside due to air pollution, though rain eventually cleared away some smoke.

Iran maintains sufficient fuel, Veys Karami, Managing Director of the National Iranian Oil Products Distribution Company, told Iran’s state-run news agency. Israel’s military said on Saturday that targeted oil depots were being used by Iran’s military.

Israel renewed its assault early Sunday on parts of Lebanon, where health officials reported 12 more people killed, pushing the death toll there above 300.

The Israeli military has ordered tens of thousands of people in large swaths of the country, including parts of the Beirut area, to evacuate during an offensive that its military said would be aimed at stamping out Iran-supported forces there. It warned residents of southern Lebanon to move north on Sunday morning.

Israel’s renewed offensive began last week after Hezbollah launched rockets toward northern Israel during the opening days of the war. The subsequent strikes have been the most intense since a November 2024 ceasefire.

Israel withdrew from most of southern Lebanon at that time but continued near-daily strikes, primarily in southern Lebanon, saying that Hezbollah had been trying to rebuild its positions there. Hezbollah said last week that after more than a year of abiding by a ceasefire as Israel’s strikes continued on Lebanon, its patience has ended, leaving it with no option but to fight.

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Metz reported from Ramallah, West Bank, and Magdy from Cairo, Egypt. Associated Press journalists Bassem Mroue in Beirut, Qassim Abdul-Zahra in Baghdad, Amir-Hussein Radjy in Cairo, Melanie Lidman in Tel Aviv, Israel, Natalie Melzer in Nahariya, Israel, and Aamer Madhani in Doral, Florida, contributed reporting.