Amman: President Mirjana Spoljaric warned that attacks on essential infrastructure are effectively attacks on civilians, stressing the urgent need to halt such practices and intensify de-escalation efforts. "War on essential infrastructure is war on civilians. It must stop. Every effort to de-escalate is critical," Spoljaric said in a statement distributed by the ICRC on Tuesday.
According to Jordan News Agency, Spoljaric warned that "deliberate attacks on essential services and civilian infrastructure can amount to war crimes," noting that energy, fuel, water, and health-care infrastructure are being damaged and destroyed. She emphasized that this trend is not limited to the Middle East or to a specific period, but has become pervasive across conflicts in multiple regions. However, she expressed concerns that recent developments in the Middle East risk pushing the situation to "a point of no return."
Spoljaric highlighted the most alarming threat as the potential harm to nuclear facilities, whether deliberate or incidental, due to the irreversible consequences that could follow damage to such sites. She noted that this is why nuclear facilities are afforded heightened protections under the rules of war.
She stated that attacks on essential infrastructure have already inflicted suffering on millions of civilians, both near and far from the front lines. Spoljaric warned that this pattern, along with escalatory rhetoric that disregards the limits imposed by international humanitarian law, is normalizing a form of warfare that strips away shared humanity. She emphasized that respecting the dignity of civilians is the basis for de-escalation and for political solutions on which peace and stability can be built.