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President Donald Trump issued a 48-hour ultimatum to Iran late Saturday, threatening to destroy the country’s power grid if Tehran does not fully reopen the Strait of Hormuz to commercial shipping by Monday evening — a dramatic reversal from his statement just 24 hours earlier that he was considering winding down the war, delivered the same night that Iranian missiles pierced Israel’s air defense systems and struck two communities near the country’s nuclear research center, injuring more than 100 people in the most destructive single Iranian attack since the conflict began on February 28.
“If Iran doesn’t FULLY OPEN, WITHOUT THREAT, the Strait of Hormuz, within 48 HOURS from this exact point in time, the United States of America will hit and obliterate their various POWER PLANTS, STARTING WITH THE BIGGEST ONE FIRST!” Trump wrote on Truth Social at 7:44 p.m. Eastern time Saturday, posting from his Florida home.
The deadline expires at 7:44 p.m. Eastern on Monday — 3:14 a.m. Tuesday in Tehran. Trump did not specify which plant he meant by “the biggest one first.” Iran’s largest power facilities include the Damavand Combined Cycle Power Plant southeast of Tehran at 2,868 megawatts, the Shahid Salimi plant near the Caspian Sea at 2,215 MW, and the Shahid Rajai plant northeast of Tehran at 2,043 MW. The country also operates a 1,000 MW nuclear plant at Bushehr on its southern coast.
Iran’s military response to the ultimatum was immediate and symmetrical in its logic. Iran’s Khatam al-Anbiya military command headquarters stated that if the United States attacks Iran’s fuel and energy infrastructure, Tehran would target all U.S. energy, information technology, and desalination infrastructure in the region. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, in a separately issued statement, maintained that Iran had not fully closed the strait — insisting that restrictions applied only to vessels from countries actively participating in attacks against Iran, and that other nations willing to distance themselves from the war could seek safe passage.
The ultimatum arrived in the middle of a night in which the war had already taken a qualitatively new turn. Two Iranian long-range missiles struck Dimona and Arad in southern Israel, defeating the layered air defense network that had stopped hundreds of previous projectiles and landing in areas near Israel’s classified nuclear research facility.
In Arad, rescue workers said the direct hit caused widespread damage across at least ten apartment buildings, three of them badly damaged and at risk of collapse. At least 64 people were taken to hospital. In Dimona, 33 were injured and Israeli military spokesperson Brigadier General Effie Defrin confirmed “a direct missile hit on a building” and said: “We will investigate the incident and learn from it.” A 10-year-old boy was listed in serious condition with shrapnel wounds.
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The symbolic and strategic dimensions of the strikes on Dimona were unmistakable. Dimona hosts the Negev Nuclear Research Center — a facility believed by foreign governments and independent analysts to be the site of Israel’s undeclared nuclear weapons program. Israel has never confirmed or denied possessing nuclear weapons. Iran stated explicitly that the targeting of Dimona was retaliation for U.S.-Israeli strikes on the Natanz nuclear enrichment facility earlier on Saturday. Iran’s Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf framed the significance on X before word of the Arad strike had spread: “If the Israeli regime is unable to intercept missiles in the heavily protected Dimona area, it is, operationally, a sign of entering a new phase of the battle.” The UN nuclear watchdog confirmed it had received no reports of damage to the Israeli center and detected no abnormal radiation levels.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu characterized the dual strikes as “a very difficult evening in the battle for our future” and vowed to continue striking Iran on “all fronts.” Within hours of the Arad and Dimona attacks, the Israeli military launched a new wave of strikes on Tehran, and Defense Minister Israel Katz reiterated Saturday morning’s statement that Israeli strikes would “increase significantly” in the week ahead.
The overnight escalation represented the starkest possible contradiction of Trump’s wind-down framing. Trump’s Saturday ultimatum also followed Iran’s launch of two long-range, 4,000-kilometer ballistic missiles targeting the joint U.S.-British military base on Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean — the second such attempt after Saturday morning’s failed strikes on the same target. Israeli military chief Eyal Zamir noted the missiles’ extended range pointedly: “These missiles are not intended for Israel. Their range threatens European capitals — Berlin, Paris, and Rome are now in direct danger.”
CENTCOM chief Admiral Brad Cooper asserted Saturday that the U.S. had degraded Iran’s ability to attack vessels in the strait, noting that U.S. fighter jets had struck an underground coastal facility storing anti-ship cruise missiles and mobile launchers. Al Jazeera’s Washington correspondent observed, however, a notable gap between that military assessment and the political urgency behind Trump’s ultimatum: “It is interesting, to say at the very least, to hear Trump talking about a major escalation, given the fact that we’ve been hearing throughout the course of the day how much damage the US has done, supposedly, to Iran’s ability to target oil tankers.”
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Retail gasoline prices in the United States have risen 93 cents per gallon since the war began on February 28. Oil prices have climbed approximately 50 percent. The administration on Friday lifted some Iran oil sanctions, allowing the sale of 140 million barrels of stranded Iranian crude — the third sanctions waiver issued in three weeks and a measure analysts described as evidence of a depleted economic policy toolkit. Over 20 nations have indicated they want to contribute to a framework to secure Hormuz navigation, according to an official statement, but all have conditioned participation on an end to active fighting — a precondition that Saturday’s events made considerably more difficult to achieve.
The cumulative human toll from four weeks of war stands at more than 1,500 killed in Iran according to state broadcaster figures citing the health ministry, 15 killed in Israel by Iranian missiles, at least 13 U.S. military personnel killed, more than 1,000 dead in Lebanon, and well over a dozen civilians dead across Gulf states. The 48-hour deadline expires Monday night. No diplomatic framework to resolve the standoff is publicly under discussion.
