Baghdad, Iraq. Iraq’s national electricity grid collapsed across all provinces on Wednesday, as the fifth day of the US-Israeli war on Iran reverberated across the region and fighting in Lebanon intensified.
Nationwide blackout in Iraq
Iraq’s Electricity Ministry said the national grid had gone down entirely across all provinces, with the cause under investigation.
The outage raised questions about whether the conflict is affecting Iranian gas supplies that Baghdad depends on to generate most of its electricity. Iraq relies on tens of millions of cubic metres of Iranian natural gas per day to keep its power plants running, and previous disruptions have triggered immediate nationwide outages.
Iran threatens ships carrying cargo to Israel
Iran escalated its economic measures on Wednesday when an unnamed Revolutionary Guards Navy commander told Iranian state media that Tehran was targeting US and UK vessels — and any ships regardless of flag — carrying cargo destined for Israel in the Gulf.
The conflict has pushed Brent Crude prices from around $70 to over $80 per barrel since fighting began on 28 February, following Iran’s earlier threat to close the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly a fifth of global oil supplies pass.
Israeli strikes and ground moves in Lebanon
In Lebanon, Israel’s Social Affairs Minister said 20 people were killed in Israeli strikes on Wednesday. The Lebanese Health Ministry said that since Hezbollah entered the conflict on Monday, 50 people had been killed and 246 wounded.
An Israeli airstrike on a four-storey building in the eastern city of Baalbeck killed six people and wounded 15, with rescue workers still searching for survivors. A strike also hit a hotel in the Beirut suburb of Hazmieh, outside Hezbollah-controlled territory.
Israeli troops pushed deeper into southern Lebanon on Wednesday, with a senior Lebanese security official telling Reuters that forces had moved into at least nine towns. An Israeli military spokesperson said the army was positioning troops farther into Lebanon to prevent attacks against northern communities in Israel.
Israel issued an evacuation order instructing residents of the strip between the border and the Litani River, amounting to roughly 8% of Lebanese territory, to move north immediately.
Hezbollah attacks and displacement
Hezbollah announced several attacks on Wednesday, including a precision-guided missile strike on a military facility in northern Israel and drone attacks on a base 120 kilometres inside Israeli territory. On Tuesday, missiles from Lebanon triggered air raid sirens as far south as Tel Aviv.
Hezbollah said it entered the war to avenge the assassination of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, whom it said was killed in the opening US-Israeli strikes on 28 February. Israel’s military said it had struck more than 250 Hezbollah targets across Lebanon in the previous 48 hours.
Nearly 60,000 people have fled the renewed fighting in Lebanon, the United Nations said, adding to tens of thousands already displaced by the 2024 war between the two sides.
How could the regional conflict affect electricity supplies and shipping in the coming days?
