Tehran's streets are deserted, shops are closed, and communication is poor at best. With no real air raid shelters open to the public, panicked citizens spend nights on the floors of metro stations as the blasts echo above them.
This is what the Iranian capital looks like, according to the Associated Press, less than a week after a fierce Israeli strike aimed at destroying Iran's nuclear program and military capabilities. After neutralizing most of Iran's air defense system, Israel claims that its fighter jets now have complete control of Tehran's skies. President of the United States Donald tramp on Monday he called on Tehran's roughly 10 million residents to evacuate the city "immediately."
Thousands have already fled, spending hours in traffic jams on their way to the suburbs, the Caspian Sea, and even Armenia or Turkey. But others, the elderly and infirm, remain stuck in high-rise apartment buildings, their relatives fearing for their lives.
Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, rejected Donald Trump's demand for unconditional surrender yesterday, while the US president said he had "run out of patience" - although he did not reveal what he would take as the next step.
Speaking to reporters, Trump declined to say whether he had made a decision to join Israel's bombing campaign against the Islamic Republic. The Iranians, he said, had tried to reach out, but it was "too late to talk." "There's a big difference between now and seven days ago," Trump told reporters outside the White House. "Nobody knows what I'm going to do."
In the latest bombing, Israel said its air force had destroyed the headquarters of Iran's internal security service. "As we promised, we will continue to strike at symbols of power and attack the ayatollah's regime wherever it is," Israel's defense minister said. Israel Katz.
Ayatollah Khamenei, 86, criticized Trump in a recorded speech broadcast on television, his first appearance since Friday. Americans "should know that any military intervention by the United States will inevitably cause irreparable damage," Khamenei said. "Intelligent people who know Iran, the Iranian nation and its history would never speak the language of threats to this nation, because the Iranian people will not surrender."
Israeli strikes on Iran have killed at least 585 people and injured over 1.300, according to a human rights organization.
State media, also targeted by the bombing, has stopped reporting on the attacks, leaving Iranians in the dark. Visible signs of the state's presence are rare, the AP reports, adding that police are mostly in plainclothes, sirens are unreliable, and there is almost no information on what to do in the event of an attack.
Width (49), who lives in the southern part of Tehran, told the American agency that every call or message to friends and family in recent days feels like the last. "We don't know if we will be alive tomorrow," she said.
Many Iranians have mixed feelings. Some support Israel's targeting of political and military officials, whom they see as repressive. Others staunchly defend the Islamic Republic and its retaliatory attacks on Israel. And then there are those who oppose Iranian rule but still do not want their country to be bombed.
Stay or leave?
The Associated Press spoke by phone with five people in Iran and one Iranian-American citizen in the U.S. All spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of state retaliation against them or their families.
Most calls ended abruptly within minutes, ending conversations because people got scared or the connection went down. The Iranian government has admitted to disrupting internet access. It says it is to protect the country, but it has made it impossible for average Iranians to get information from the outside world.
Iranians in the diaspora are anxiously awaiting news from their relatives. One of them, an Iranian-American human rights researcher in the United States, said he last heard from his relatives as they were trying to flee Tehran earlier this week. He believes fuel shortages and traffic jams prevented them from leaving. The most heartbreaking moment, he said, was when his elderly relatives told him: "We don't know where to go. If we die, we die." "It's a state of complete despair," he said.
Some families decided to separate.
A 23-year-old Afghan refugee who has been living in Iran for four years has stayed in Tehran but sent his wife and newborn son out of the city after a missile hit a nearby pharmacy on Monday. "It was a huge shock for them," he said.
Some, like Shirin, said fleeing was not an option. Tehran's apartment buildings are tall and densely populated. Her father has Alzheimer's and needs an ambulance to transport him. Her mother's severe arthritis would make even the shortest journey extremely painful.
Still, hoping that escape might be possible, Shirin has been trying to collect their medicine for the past few days. Her brother waited at a gas station until 20 a.m., only to be turned away because he was out of fuel. Since Monday, fuel has been rationed at stations across Iran - under XNUMX liters per driver - after an Israeli strike set off a fire at the world's largest gas field.
Some, like Arshije, they said they were simply tired.
"I don't want to spend 40, 30, 20 hours in traffic just to get somewhere that might end up being bombed as well," he said.
The 22-year-old has been stuck at home with his parents since the first Israeli strike. He says the once-vibrant Sadat Abad neighborhood in northwest Tehran is now a ghost town. Schools are closed. Few people even go outside to walk their dogs. Most local shops have run out of drinking water and cooking oil. Others are closed.
Residents left to their own devices
No air raid sirens sounded when Israeli strikes began hitting Tehran before dawn on Friday. For many, it was an early indication that civilians would be left to fend for themselves.
During the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s, Tehran was a city of low-rise buildings, many houses had basements where people could take shelter, and there were drills and sirens in case of an attack. Today, the capital is full of high-rise apartment buildings packed close together, with no shelter.
"It's a mistake from the past - that they didn't build shelters," said a 29-year-old Tehran resident who left the city on Monday. "Even though we've been living under the shadow of war for as long as I can remember."
Her friend's boyfriend was killed while going to the store. "You don't really expect your partner, or anyone of yours, to leave the house and never come back, when they just went on a normal, routine shopping trip," she said.
Those who choose to relocate are doing so without any help from the state. Authorities have announced they are opening mosques, schools and metro stations as shelters. Some of these places are closed, while others are packed with people.
Hundreds of people crowded into a Tehran metro station on Friday night. Entire families lay on the floor. One student, a refugee from another country, said she spent 12 hours in the station with her relatives. “Everyone there was panicking about the situation,” she said. “Nobody knew what was going to happen next, whether there was going to be war, what they were supposed to do. People felt like nowhere was safe for them.” Shortly after she left the station, she saw that Israel had warned that part of Tehran had to be evacuated.
"It's very difficult for immigrant communities to live in a situation like this," she said, explaining that she felt like she had nowhere to escape to, especially not to her homeland, which she did not want to name.
Fear of the regime intertwined with fear of Israel
For Shirin, the hostilities are bittersweet at the same time. While she opposes the theocracy and the regime's treatment of women, the idea of Israel deciding the future of her country is difficult for her.
"As much as we want the end of this regime, we did not want it to come at the hands of a foreign power," she said. "We would like it to be the result of a popular movement in Iran if there is to be change."
Meanwhile, the 29-year-old who left Tehran had a message for those outside Iran: "I just want people to remember that whatever is happening here, it is not something ordinary for us. The lives of people here, their existence, are just as precious as they are for anyone else anywhere in the world. How would you feel if your city or your country was being bombed by a foreign country, and people were dying everywhere?" "We think in terms of: it's impossible for this to happen. This can't be my life."
Bonus video:
