Bonji desalination plant

The Bonji plant sits at Jask, on Iran's Gulf of Oman coast just outside the Strait of Hormuz, in Hormozgan Province. It supplies surrounding villages with drinking water desalinated from the sea. Desalination on this coast runs on electricity, so the plant's water production depends on an unbroken power feed rather than on the condition of its intake or membranes.

Missiles hit the desalination pumps and power supply at Bonji on 19 July, cutting water to about 20 villages and an estimated 10,000 people. Iranian media attributed the strike to US forces, though CENTCOM has not itemised the target; the loss of supply followed from the loss of the grid connection rather than damage to the intake or membranes themselves.

The strike puts Iran on the receiving end of a target class it opened. Iranian drones had already struck a pair of Kuwaiti desalination plants in April, and within the same week as the Bonji strike the IRGC hit Kuwait's Shuaiba complex in the opposite direction. Restoring water at Bonji means restoring power first, and repair crews working under continued bombardment do that slowly.