Israel holds surprise multi-front drill to test readiness after Iran war

“With this year’s low rainfall, surface and underground water resources have declined and the situation is not favorable,” Hossein Haghighi, head of Tehran Water and Wastewater Region 4, told the semi-official ISNA news agency. “If it does not rain, we expect even tougher conditions in autumn.”

Haghighi said authorities had adopted a “multi-layer” approach that included reducing water pressure in some areas, public awareness campaigns and promoting low-flow devices to curb household use.

New buildings are required to install storage tanks and pumps before connecting to the network, he said. Tariffs are structured to heavily subsidize low users, while “bad consumers” – the highest tier – pay sharply higher rates. “After three warnings, we cut water to heavy users for 12 hours,” Haghighi said.

'Day zero' warnings disputed

Haghighi’s remarks followed a stark warning from Mohsen Dehnavi, spokesman for Iran’s Expediency Council, who said the water crisis “has passed the warning stage and entered a critical phase.”

“Continuing this trend could bring some areas of the capital to day zero in the coming weeks – a day when drinking water is cut off in many neighborhoods and the daily life of millions is disrupted,” Dehnavi said in a post on the social media platform X.

He blamed “five years of drought, overuse of underground aquifers, rapid urban population growth, high per-capita consumption and structural weaknesses in water management” for pushing Tehran’s reservoirs towards dangerous depletion.

He called for “strict conservation policies, renovation of ageing networks, industrial consumption controls and the adoption of smart, real-time resource management systems.”

Isa Bozorgzadeh, spokesman for Iran’s water industry, rejected the “day zero” assessment, saying that with further reductions in demand the crisis could be “acceptably managed.”

“If Tehran reduces its consumption by another 12%, the capital will pass through this crisis without severe disruption,” he said. Bozorgzadeh added that July saw a 13% drop in use compared with last year, and consumption so far in August was down more than 14%.

Drought, heatwaves, and blackouts

The water crisis comes after months of extreme heat that has triggered rolling blackouts and the temporary shutdown of government offices in several provinces to conserve energy.

Iran’s meteorological organization says the country has faced a near-constant drought for more than two decades, with rainfall down sharply this year and snowpack levels at historic lows.

Environmental activists have long warned that Iran’s sprawling capital – home to nearly 10 million people – is acutely vulnerable to water shortages due to inefficient infrastructure, leaky pipes, and limited investment in modern conservation technologies.

Climatologist Nasser Karami told Iran International earlier in August that the water crisis in Iran transcends drought and is a product of government mismanagement, militarized agriculture and deliberate manipulation.

According to Haghighi, Tehran’s average household water use is more than twice the international standard.

“Changing consumption habits is no longer optional – it’s a necessity,” Haghighi said. “If every household reduces just 10% of its water use, the capital can avoid the most severe restrictions.”

Elias Hazrati, head of the government’s information council, said on Tuesday: “Today, the country is in a completely stable situation. There is no crisis, and no war is taking place or about to begin.”

On Friday, Armenia and Azerbaijan signed a deal at the White House to settle a longtime dispute over the corridor, a strip of land which became a flash point in the two rivals’ decades-long conflict.

The deal gives Washington leasing rights to develop the transit corridor, which would connect Azerbaijan with its exclave, Nakhchivan. It will be renamed the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP).

“In any decision or action, respect for national sovereignty and the territorial integrity of countries must be fully observed,” Araghchi added, according to a readout of the call published by Iranian media.

Earlier in the day, government spokeswoman Fatemeh Mohajerani dismissed what she called exaggerated claims about the Zangezur corridor, saying it covers only a small area near Iran’s border.

"It is not as if our entire northern border has been lost,” Mohajerani said, but added that that Iran demands stability, territorial integrity, and existing sovereignty to be preserved.

A senior adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, however, vowed to block the establishment of the transit corridor saying it would endanger regional security and alter the region's geopolitics.

“This passage will not become a gateway for Trump’s mercenaries — it will become their graveyard,” Ali Akbar Velayati said.

Velayati stressed that Iran has always opposed the Zangezur corridor, saying it would alter borders, fragment Armenia, and restrict Iran’s regional access.

Police spokesman Saeed Montazeralmahdi told state media the arrests followed 7,850 reports to the national emergency line 110. “The 41% increase in public calls and the arrest of 21,000 suspects in the 12-day war shows the high level of vigilance and participation of the people in ensuring security,” he said.

Montazeralmahdi said officers had set up more than 1,000 tactical checkpoints across the country during the conflict, deploying over 40,000 police for round-the-clock road and site security.

He said security forces thwarted “field conspiracies by the enemy,” including the disruption of a planned gathering in Tehran’s Palestine Square.

The police spokesman also reported the detention of 127 escaped prisoners during an incident at Evin prison, and the seizure of unexploded bombs.

Authorities detained 2,774 undocumented foreign nationals, finding 30 “special security” cases through phone checks, and arrested 261 people on suspicion of espionage and 172 for alleged unauthorized filming, he added.

However, Judiciary Chief Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei had given a far lower figure, saying that “around 2,000 people” were arrested during and after the conflict, some of whom face the death penalty on charges of “organizational collaboration with the enemy.”

“In our law, anyone who cooperates with a hostile state during wartime must be arrested and prosecuted,” Ejei told state TV late in July. He said some detainees had been released after investigations found no evidence of espionage, while others were freed on bail but remain under suspicion.

The judiciary says trials are being fast-tracked under wartime procedures.

UN experts, including the special rapporteur on human rights in Iran, have urged Tehran to halt what they called a “post-ceasefire crackdown,” citing the arrests of hundreds of journalists, rights defenders, social media users, foreign nationals – particularly Afghans – and members of Baha’i, Kurdish, Baluchi and Ahwazi Arab minorities.

Iran Human Rights, an Oslo-based NGO, said 21 people were executed during the June conflict period, including six accused of spying for Israel.

The arrests come as President Masoud Pezeshkian’s government faces a backlash over internet restrictions imposed during the war and a now-withdrawn cybercrime bill that critics said would have criminalized dissent.

The draft law, “Combating the Dissemination of False Content in Cyberspace,” proposed prison terms, fines and bans for online users, with harsher penalties during “crisis or wartime.”

Government spokeswoman Fatemeh Mohajerani said last month the cabinet withdrew the bill “in line with national cohesion and on the president’s directive.” Critics argued its vague language, including phrases such as “distorted, misleading, and harmful to public perception,” would have enabled arbitrary prosecutions.

Four current and former Israeli intelligence officials, cited in the report, said the offensive had been a long-term contingency plan, but strategic timing was key.

“Israel has never hidden the fact that it wants to destroy the Iranian nuclear program, and it has never hidden the fact it was also willing to allow it to be resolved diplomatically, as long as the diplomatic solution prevents Iran not only from enriching uranium, but from ever getting the capacity to pose an existential threat to the state of Israel,” one intelligence source told Euronews.

On June 13, Israel launched land and air strikes targeting senior Iranian military leaders, nuclear scientists, and politicians, while damaging or destroying Iranian air defenses and nuclear facilities. Iran retaliated with missile and drone attacks on Israeli cities and military sites. On the ninth day of fighting, the United States bombed three Iranian nuclear sites. Iran then struck a US base in Qatar.

A US-brokered ceasefire was reached on June 24. Both sides claimed victory, with Israel and Washington saying they had significantly degraded Iran’s missile and nuclear programs -- claims Tehran denied. Independent assessments remain limited due to the secrecy surrounding Iran’s nuclear activities.

Trump’s re-election

The intelligence sources told Euronews that Trump’s second election win in 2024 was pivotal to Israel’s decision-making.

“The original plan was to attack in October 2024. That was after the second direct missile attack by Iran on Israel following Israel’s assassination of Hezbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah in Lebanon in September,” the first intelligence source said. However, the strike was postponed until after the US elections.

“I think it was very important for Israel that Trump should win those elections. Once Trump was elected, he put the main emphasis on reaching a hostage deal,” said a second source, referring to the Hamas-Israel conflict.

Once the hostage deal was signed in March 2025, Israel again considered an attack on Iran, but US-Iran negotiations temporarily stalled those plans.

A 60-day ultimatum

Indirect talks between Washington and Tehran began in March 2025 but failed to produce an agreement, despite being described by counterparts as “constructive.”

“Trump gave 60 days to those negotiations. The day after, Israel attacked Iran. I think that obviously was coordinated with the US administration,” all four sources told Euronews.

Although the US has never publicly confirmed coordination, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on June 23 that the operation had been “planned for many years.”

“When we attacked, we were at the end of the 60-day period of negotiations. I think it was very clear to Trump at this stage that the Iranians were not willing to forego enrichment on Iranian soil, even though the negotiations did bring up some interesting solutions to that. For example, some sort of international enrichment agency that would allocate enriched uranium at civilian levels to all countries in the region interested in it,” the first intelligence source said.

“Trump realized Iran was engaging in negotiations merely to buy time, with no real intent to reach a resolution. The talks served as a decoy, giving Iran the impression it wouldn’t be attacked, especially amid widespread press reports that Israel was on the verge of striking,” the source added.

On the first day of conflict, Trump said in a post on Truth Social: “Two months ago I gave Iran a 60-day ultimatum to ‘make a deal.’ They should have done it! Today is day 61. I told them what to do, but they just couldn’t get there. Now they have, perhaps, a second chance!”

Iran’s missile attacks

The proxy conflict between Israel and Iran had been intensifying for years, but the intelligence officials said a turning point came in April 2024 when Iran launched missiles directly from its own territory at Israel.

“I think the pivotal moment was in April 2024, when Iran launched missiles directly from its own territory at Israel. Until then, Iran had primarily relied on proxies to attack Israel, while Israel carried out covert operations inside Iran with plausible deniability, aiming to prevent escalation into full-scale war,” the first source said.

The strike followed an Israeli attack on Iran’s consulate in Syria that killed Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Zahedi, at the time the highest-ranking Iranian military official killed since the 2020 US assassination of Revolutionary Guard’s Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani.

“I think Israel had to wait from April 2024. It needed time to gather all the intelligence and planning it needed in order to feel confident that, already in the first two or three days of the war, we would be in a position where we had complete control over the situation, minimal casualties at home, and complete control of Iranian airspace, with the ability to attack whenever and wherever we want to,” the source added.

A second intelligence source told Euronews that Israel intends to “destroy anything that even suggests that the Iranians are preparing to rebuild any of the capabilities that we have destroyed.”

“Of respondents, 89% rated their agreement with the government’s economic policies as ‘low’ or ‘very low.’ 72% expressed dissatisfaction or strong dissatisfaction with government policies,” according to the poll results published on Monday.

The poll also indicated that the economy is the top priority for 53% of respondents, while 36% prioritized foreign policy.

The poll consisted of three questions, conducted via the paper’s Telegram channel with an average of 2,130 respondents per question.

Iran is currently grappling with water shortages and widespread power outages amid high summer temperatures, while also dealing with recovery efforts following a 12-day war with Israel and its aftermath.

Sanctions, corruption and economic mismanagement have contributed to widespread economic hardship and market instability as Iran's currency the rial has lost over 90% of its value since US sanctions were reimposed in 2018.

Tehran faces another challenge from European countries Germany, France and the United Kingdom who may be poised to trigger United Nations sanctions per the so-called the snapback mechanism.

Snapback refers to a clause in UN Security Council Resolution 2231, which endorsed the a 2015 deal on Iran's disputed nuclear program dubbed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

Under Resolution 2231, any party to the accord can file a complaint accusing Iran of non-compliance. If no agreement is reached within 30 days to maintain sanctions relief, all previous UN sanctions would automatically “snap back,” including arms embargoes, cargo inspections and missile restrictions.

Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence issued secret guidance on Monday, warning ministries and major companies to prepare for the likely return of punishing United Nations sanctions, documents reviewed by Iran International show.

Iran’s state-run English-language newspaper Tehran Times reported on August 8 that Tehran and Washington may start Norway-mediated indirect talks in August, covering Iran’s nuclear program and compensation demands over its June war with Israel and the United States.

Washington has called Iran’s compensation demand “ridiculous,” urging Tehran to stop funding militias and its nuclear program.