Iran is facing a gas crisis of epic proportions that has led to nearly the entire country to be shut down. This comes after Israel blew up two of their major gas lines earlier this year.

With the cold weather greatly increasing the demand for gas, the government had to decide to heat people’s homes which has left much of the country dark and without power.

Here’s more from the New York Times:

Government offices in Iran are closed or operating at reduced hours. Schools and colleges have moved to online only. Highways and shopping malls have descended into darkness, and industrial plants have been denied power, bringing manufacturing to a near halt.

Although Iran has one of the biggest supplies of natural gas and crude oil in the world, it is in a full-blown energy crisis that can be attributed to years of sanctions, mismanagement, aging infrastructure, wasteful consumption — and targeted attacks by Israel.

“We are facing very dire imbalances in gas, electricity, energy, water, money and environment,” said President Masoud Pezeshkian in a live televised address to the nation this month. “All of them are at a level that could turn into a crisis.”

While Iran has been struggling with issues with its infrastructure for years, the president warned that the problem had reached a critical point.

For most of last week, the country was virtually shut down to save energy. As ordinary Iranians fumed and industrial leaders warned that the accompanying losses amounted to tens of billions of dollars, Mr. Pezeshkian could offer no solution other than to say he was sorry.

“We must apologize to the people that we are in a situation where they have to bear the brunt,” Mr. Pezeshkian said. “God willing, next year we will try for this not to happen.”

Officials have said the deficit in the amount of gas the country needs to function amounts to about 350 million cubic meters a day, and as temperatures have plunged and demand has spiked, officials have had to resort to extreme measures to ration gas.

The government faced two stark choices. It either had to cut gas service to residential homes or shut down the supply to power plants that generated electricity.

It chose the latter, as turning gas off to residential units would come with serious safety hazards and would cut off the primary source of heat for most Iranians.

The energy crisis has hit Iran at a particularly difficult geopolitical time.

Iran’s regional status as a power player has been severely diminished following the collapse of the al-Assad government in Syria and Israel’s decimation of Hezbollah in Lebanon. The return of President-elect Donald J. Trump is expected to bring maximum pressure on the regime, with policies that will further squeeze the economy.

The country’s currency, the rial, has also been in free fall this week, plunging to its lowest rate ever against the dollar.

All this has left the government vulnerable as it scrambles to contain each crisis.

A lesser-known factor has exacerbated the energy crisis this year: In February Israel blew up two gas pipelines in Iran as part of its covert war with the country. As a result, the government quietly tapped into emergency gas reserves to avoid service disruption to millions of people, according to an official from the oil ministry and Mr. Hosseini, the member of the Chamber of Commerce’s energy committee.

It’s time for the people of Iran to rise up and overthrow the tyrannical Islamic regime that has crippled this country. This would also be a good time for Israel to take out Iran’s nuclear facilities since they may not have a way of defending themselves from any attack.