TEHRAN — Iran’s Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant, the nation’s sole civilian nuclear energy facility, was struck by a projectile on Tuesday evening, an attack Tehran condemned as a flagrant act of terrorism by the United States and Israel that imperils the entire Persian Gulf region.

The Atomic Energy Organization of Iran confirmed that the facility was hit at approximately 9:08 p.m., describing the strike as a sharp escalation in U.S.-Israeli aggression against the Islamic Republic’s civilian infrastructure. The incident marks the second attack on the Bushehr plant in recent weeks, following a previous strike on March 5.

The attack comes amid a dramatic broadening of hostilities after the United States and Israel launched an illegal and unprovoked war on Iran on Feb. 28, an offensive that included the assassination of Iran’s Leader of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, and several top military commanders.

In a letter to Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director-general of the World Health Organization, Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, Ali Bahreini, warned that the strikes on nuclear and oil facilities posed an enduring threat to public health far beyond Iran’s borders.

“These actions constitute a significant and long-term threat to public health,” Ambassador Bahreini wrote.

He urged international bodies, particularly the W.H.O., to intervene, stressing that the attacks represent a clear violation of international and humanitarian law.

Attacks on civilian nuclear facilities are prohibited under international humanitarian law. The Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions explicitly grants special protection to installations containing dangerous forces, including nuclear power plants, stipulating that such sites shall not be made the object of attack if it may cause the release of dangerous forces with consequent severe losses among the civilian population.

The United States and Israel also attacked Iran's nuclear facilities in Esfahan, Natanz and Fordow during their previous war against the country in June of 2025. During their current war, they attacked Natanz again.

The potential consequences of sustained attacks on Bushehr threaten to unleash an environmental catastrophe that could leave Persian Gulf nations without potable water.

“Such strikes could have irreparable consequences,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov warned on Monday. Russia played a central role in constructing the Bushehr plant, the first nuclear power facility in West Asia.

The Bushehr plant is situated on the coast of the Persian Gulf, a body of water that is the primary source of desalinated drinking water for much of West Asia, including Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates. Environmental scientists warn that a significant breach of the reactor’s containment or the release of spent nuclear fuel pools could result in radioactive contamination of the Persian Gulf's waters.

Were such a contamination event to occur, it could cripple desalination plants that line the Persian Gulf's shores, potentially disrupting the water supply for tens of millions of people across the region. Iran has long argued that the international community’s silence on such threats amounts to complicity in what it terms environmental terrorism.