Getty PhotosLengthy queues at petrol stations and bakeries. Lengthy strains of vehicles attempting to flee the capital. And lengthy, scary nights.
Residents of Tehran – nonetheless shocked by Israel’s sudden assault on Iran within the early hours of Friday morning – converse of concern and confusion, a sense of helplessness and conflicting feelings.
“We have not slept for nights,” a 21-year-old music scholar instructed me over an encrypted social media app.
“Everyone seems to be leaving however I am not. My dad says it is extra honourable to die in your individual home than to run away.”
‘Donya’ – she does not need to reveal her actual title – is one in every of many Iranians now caught in a warfare between a regime she loathes and Israel, whose harmful energy in Gaza she has witnessed on display screen from afar.
“I actually don’t need my stunning Tehran to show into Gaza,” she stated.
As for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s name on Iranians to stand up towards their clerical management, she has a agency response.
“We do not need Israel to avoid wasting us. No overseas nation ever cared for Iran,” she stated. “We additionally don’t need the Islamic Republic.”
One other lady stated that in the first place she had felt a “unusual pleasure” to see Israel kill Iranian army officers so highly effective that she thought they’d reside for ever.
“Out of the blue that picture of energy was shattered,” she instructed BBC Persian.
“However from the second day, once I heard that common folks – folks I did not know, folks like me – had additionally been killed, I began to really feel sorrow, concern and disappointment.”
And he or she stated her disappointment turned to anger when she heard that the South Pars fuel discipline had been hit, fearing that Israel was attempting to show Iran “into ruins”.
For the primary time in her life, she stated, she has began to arrange for the concept of dying.
Greater than 220 folks – lots of them girls and kids – have been killed since Friday, in accordance with the Iranian authorities.
Israeli authorities say Iranian missiles have killed at the least 24 folks in Israel over the identical interval.
Getty PhotosNot like in Israel, there aren’t any warnings of imminent assaults in Iran, and no shelters to run to.
Missiles fall from the sky however a marketing campaign of automotive bombs in Tehran – as reported by each Israeli and Iranian media – has sewn additional panic and confusion.
Even some supporters of the regime are reported to be upset that its much-vaunted defences have been so totally uncovered.
And, amongst many Iranians, mistrust within the authorities runs deep.
Donya used to defy the regime and its strict costume code by going out together with her hair uncovered.
Now, together with her college exams postponed till subsequent week, she’s staying at house.
“I get so terrified at night time,” she stated. “I take some drugs to assist me chill out and attempt to sleep.”
The Iranian authorities has urged that folks shelter in mosques and metro stations.
However that’s onerous, when the explosions appear to return out of nowhere.
“Tehran is an enormous metropolis and but each neighbourhood has been someway affected by the injury,” one other younger lady instructed BBC Persian.
“For now, all we do is examine the information each hour and name the buddies and family members whose neighbourhood has been hit to ensure they’re nonetheless alive.”
She and her household have now left their house to remain in an space the place there aren’t any identified authorities buildings.
However you by no means know, in a rustic like Iran, who could also be dwelling subsequent to you.
The Israeli assault has divided Iranians, she stated, with some celebrating the regime’s losses, whereas others are offended at these cheering Israel on.
Many Iranians hold altering their minds about what they assume. Divisions are bitter, even amongst some households.
“The state of affairs appears like the primary hours after the Titanic hit the iceberg,” the lady stated.
“Some folks had been attempting to flee, some had been saying it wasn’t an enormous deal, and others stored dancing.”
She has at all times protested towards Iran’s clerical rulers, she instructed the BBC, however sees what Netanyahu is doing to her nation as “inexcusable”.
“Everybody’s life, whether or not they supported the assaults or not, has been modified endlessly.
“Most Iranians, even those that oppose the federal government, have now realised that freedom and human rights do not come from Israeli bombs falling on cities the place defenceless civilians reside.”
She added: “Most of us are scared and anxious about what’s coming subsequent. We have packed baggage with first support provides, meals, and water, simply in case issues worsen.”
Israel says the Iranian armed forces have intentionally positioned their command centres and weapons inside civilian buildings and areas.
Members of Iran’s massive diaspora are additionally anxious.
“It is onerous to convey what it is wish to be an Iranian proper now,” says Dorreh Khatibi-Hill, a Leeds-based girls’s rights activist and researcher who’s in contact with household, buddies and different anti-regime activists.
“You are blissful that members of the regime – who’ve been torturing and murdering folks – are being taken out.
“However we all know that civilians are dying. This can be a devastating humanitarian catastrophe.”
And Iranians usually are not being given correct info on what is occurring, she says.
“The principle particular person in Iran – the supreme chief – continues to be alive whereas Iranians are fleeing for his or her lives,” she provides.
“Nobody needs Iran to show into one other Iraq, Syria or Afghanistan. None of us needs this warfare. We do not need the regime both.”
