Iran conflict threatens water supply for millions

As missiles fly and oil prices soar, the Iran war is exposing another major resource vulnerability in the Middle East: water. Drinking water has been a scarce commodity in a region defined by a dry climate and low rainfall, but attacks on the region’s desalination plants, which convert seawater into potable water, threaten to open a new front.

At least two desalination plants have been damaged so far in the conflict: Bahrain last week said an Iranian drone struck a plant there, causing “material damage.” Iran denies responsibility and, in turn, blamed the US for an attack on a facility on Qeshm Island that disrupted water supplies for 30 villages — a claim Washington also rejects. It’s not clear right now how either facility is functioning. Meanwhile, earlier Iranian strikes on Dubai’s Jebel Ali port landed just 12 miles from one of the world’s largest desalination plants, underscoring how close the critical infrastructure already is to the line of fire.

Eurasia Group warned in its 2026 Top Risks report that water could become a “loaded weapon” in the world’s most dangerous rivalries and a tool ripe for exploitation.

The majority of the Gulf states depend on desalination plants: roughly 42% of drinking water in the UAE comes from desalination, 70% in Saudi Arabia, and nearly 90% in Oman, Qatar, and Kuwait. Israel also sources half of its potable water this way. Iran, by contrast, is far less reliant on desalination, which makes up just one to three percent of the country’s total drinking water. However, it faces its own water stress after years of severe drought. Before the war started, Iran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, proposed relocating the capital from Tehran because diminished water supplies had made the city “uninhabitable.”

International law bans targeting civilian infrastructure crucial to a population’s survival, including water facilities. But there’s also precedent for attacks like these in the region. During Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in the 1990s and the Gulf War, Iraqi forces deliberately released millions of barrels of crude into the Persian Gulf and created one of the biggest oil spills in history. The spill threatened to contaminate pipes used to collect seawater in desalination plants, prompting a mad dash to protect valves at facilities in the region.

The bottom line: water could be a major pressure point as the conflict in Iran continues. If attacks on desalination plants ramp up, the conflict could soon affect the most vital resource for people in the Gulf.