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strikes on its infrastructure with raids on its neighbours.

Desalinated water provides 42 percent of drinking water in the United Arab Emirates, 70 percent in Saudi Arabia, 86 percent in Oman and 90 percent in Kuwait.

Any attack on civilian drinking water could trigger a major escalation and draw Iran’s neighbours into the fray, analysts warn, but Trump did not hold back in his latest threat, apparently designed to pressure Iran to capitulate and accept a US-proposed settlement.

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth yesterday said the next few days in the war against Iran would be decisive and warned Tehran that the conflict would intensify if it did not make a deal.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards hit back with a new threat, saying that they will target US companies in the region in retaliation from today, listing 18 groups, including Microsoft, Google, Apple, Intel, IBM, Tesla and Boeing.

Oil prices see-sawed up and down as markets weighed Trump’s confidence that Tehran would soon buckle against fears that a possible US ground operation in the Gulf would further escalate the conflict.

The US national average retail price of gasoline crossed $4 a gallon for the first time in over three years on Monday. Tight global supplies pushed Brent crude futures up 5.5% to $119 per barrel, on course for a record monthly gain of 64%.

Trump yesterday criticised countries that have not helped in the war, including France and Britain, saying they should find “some delayed courage” to take the strait and get their own oil. France and Italy have pushed back against some US-Israeli military operations, sources said, highlighting how divisions between NATO allies have been exposed by the war.

The month-long conflict has spread across the region, killing thousands, disrupting energy supplies and threatening to send the global economy into a tailspin.

Explosions were heard in Dubai and near Erbil airport in northern Iraq, sirens sounded in Jerusalem, and multiple explosions rattled the Saudi capital, Riyadh.

Authorities in UAE’s Sharjah said that an administrative building of Thuraya Telecommunications was targeted by a drone from Iran, the emirate’s media office said in a post on X.

Israeli emergency services said eight people received minor injuries from falling munitions fragments in Bnei Brak, near Tel Aviv. At least 10 blasts were heard in the Jerusalem area after missile launches from Iran were detected.

Kuwait’s state oil company reported that one of its fully loaded giant crude oil tankers burst into flames off the Dubai coast after a “direct and malicious Iranian attack while in the anchorage area”.

Authorities in Dubai said the fire on the Kuwait-flagged Al-Salmi had been brought under control, with no oil leak and no injuries to the crew. Kuwait Petroleum Corp, the ship’s owner, said the vessel’s hull was damaged, and photos of the Al-Salmi confirmed this.

Such attacks on oil tankers and export facilities have world markets jumpy, and all eyes were on the Strait of Hormuz, the maritime channel that Iran has effectively closed to all vessels except those it approves.

Two Chinese container ships were able to pass the strait, and Beijing expressed gratitude to “the relevant parties”, a foreign ministry spokeswoman told reporters.

An Israeli strike hit an apartment in Christian-majority Mansourieh, north of Beirut, state media reported, in the first attack on the area since the outbreak of the Israel-Hezbollah war. Earlier, a strike hit a building adjacent to Beirut’s main airport road, AFPTV’s live broadcast showed.

Israel’s military also reported yesterday that four more of its soldiers had been killed in combat in southern Lebanon.

Defence Minister Israel Katz said Israel’s military would occupy a swathe of southern Lebanon even after the end of the current war against Hezbollah.

“All the houses in the villages adjacent to the border in Lebanon will be demolished in accordance with the Rafah and Beit Hanoun model in Gaza,” he declared, citing the example of Israel’s last war in the region, which left much of the Palestinian territory in ruins.