US strikes hit Iranian bridges and railways; Kuwait reports damage to power and water plant

Fact-check index: 88/100 — Nearly every substantive claim is directly supported by the cited France 24 and IndexBox sources, with the article carefully flagging its own speculation and gaps.

• US strikes hit transport infrastructure in Iran, including bridges, overnight July 17–18, per Iranian media via France 24 — Matches France 24 lead almost verbatim, with correct citation.
• Raids also struck an airport and a railway station — Supported by the France 24 live-blog headline URL slug ('us-strikes-in-iran-hit-airport-bridges-and-railway-station'); the live page body was not provided but the title corroborates.
• Escalation came more than a week after fighting resumed around the Strait of Hormuz — Directly stated in the France 24 source text.
• Kuwait says an electrical and desalination plant was damaged in an Iranian attack — Matches the France 24 live-blog headline exactly; cited correctly.
• Cathay Cargo postponed its Riyadh freighter services because of US-Iran hostilities — Matches the IndexBox headline exactly; cited correctly.
• The White House insists the door to diplomacy remains open even as the campaign intensifies — Nearly verbatim from the France 24 source.
• The damage brings a third country's civilian utilities into the conflict — Reasonable inference (Kuwait as third party), but the 'third country' framing is the article's own characterization, not stated in sources.
• The strikes form a deliberate campaign against Iran's ability to move military supplies internally — Explicitly labeled by the article as a hypothesis and 'informed interpretation, not established fact'; sources do not state intent.
• Damage to a desalination plant threatens water supply where much comes from seawater — General regional background is plausible but not established by the provided sources; presented as analysis.
• A postponed freighter route shows carriers pricing in risk across the Gulf — Interpretive framing extrapolated from the single Cathay Cargo item; reasonable but not sourced.
• Casualty figures, scale of plant damage, and duration of the Cathay suspension are not established — Accurate; the provided sources indeed contain none of these details, and the article correctly flags them.
• Sources do not indicate whether talks are under way or who would mediate — Correct; the France 24 excerpt gives no such detail.