An Iranian woman's war diary: 'The fighter jets were like vultures circling their prey'
Firefighters and rescue workers check a building that was destroyed by an Israeli strike in central Beirut last week. Photo: AP/Hussein Malla
Last night on TV, they showed a live report from a purely residential area in eastern Tehran that had been hit by a missile.
An area where three or four multi-storey buildings were completely destroyed, and the rest were currently unusable because the blast wave had caused fundamental damage. I sat in front of the TV, frozen. Involuntarily, every few seconds, I would say loudly, “La ilaha illa Allah” (There is no god but God) and moan.
The reporter was pulling children’s toys, drawings, and other items out of the grey rubble, unable to control himself or speak. Amidst the ruins, he found a piece of men’s clothing that was still in its packaging, unopened.
With a terrible lump in his throat, he said that in many of our homes, there are new clothes we want to wear for better occasions. The New Year and Nowruz [Persian New Year] are also approaching. With that same lump in his throat, he hoped the owner of the clothes would emerge safely from under the rubble.
I, however, was staring at the large ruined building behind him, thinking to myself: whether in Gaza or now in beloved Tehran, why is it that when a missile hits a building, no colour remains but grey?
Why was everything that man pulled from the rubble — even if it was the most colorful toy in the world — now entirely grey? How did those colourful walls, those beautiful household items, that vibrant life, surrender so easily to that deadly greyness?
Last night, the sound of the explosion was extremely close, and the sound of the fighter jets even closer. Like vultures circling their prey, they circled at a very low altitude above us for 15 minutes. Dad called us to gather under one of the internal doorframes of the house.
The four of us sat in that tight space, and Dad said that if they hit near us, the blast wave would do the least damage here. As he said this, I thought of those naked, empty doorframes without walls in the report.
I thought about how few things can withstand the destructive power of bombs and missiles.
The new leader has been announced. It is the same one we guessed for years. The one protesters have been shouting about in the streets since 2017: “Mojtaba, may you die and never see the leadership.”
The one who, whenever we told people like Dad (who support the regime) that he would be the next one, they would say: “It's impossible; is the country an inheritance?”
They said: “These are your delusions.”
Now, thanks to Trump’s intervention and the martyrdom of his father, the regime’s supporters have greatly welcomed this new Khamenei — Khamenei, the son. Thanks to the intervention of this narcissistic, crazy man, people are chanting: “The hand of God was revealed; Khamenei became young again.”
In my mind, I constantly wonder: if Khamenei had died on his own, and if they wanted to make his son the successor without this heroic situation in the country, how much civil resistance would have been created? And more importantly, to what extent would the regime’s base of supporters have eroded?
I haven’t had the strength to write for two days — in fact, I haven’t had the strength for anything at all. I am a person, or at least I used to be, who felt I had a high capacity for understanding “the other”. Many people with diverse lifestyles and moral or political leanings have told me that I am a “safe” person for them.
But these days, I have lost all capacity to accept this volume of blind hatred from people.
Day and night, I struggle with myself to understand how it is possible for another Iranian not to care that their fellow countrymen are dying, that their country’s centuries-old ancient heritage is being destroyed, and that its urban and security infrastructure is being pulverized.
It is baffling how they can watch the world’s most infamous countries invade their land and only think about the downfall of the Islamic Republic at any cost.
These days, there are many voices that go unheard and much suffering that goes unseen. Mom was telling me about a friend’s sister who is blind and lives alone. No matter how much they tell her to stay with them or go somewhere safe, she says: “I’m used to my home; I know its layout and where everything is. Where else could I go?”
It was near dawn on the 20th day. I heard the sound of a relatively distant explosion and messaged ‘Z' to ask if she heard it; she didn't reply. I assumed she was asleep.
I opened the internal app and saw she had written: “My heart is in my mouth. They hit the back alley with a drone. Our living room windows shattered; the whole house is full of smoke and dust.”
A drone with immense destructive power had targeted that entirely residential area. Z said a house — targeted for reasons unknown — had been turned to powder. The buildings facing hers were seriously damaged, and the windows of their entire row of buildings had shattered.
She wrote that the whole street was covered in broken glass. In those first few minutes, several municipal sweepers arrived to clean the street, and she said the area was teeming with Red Crescent and fire department rescue teams.
She said they were carrying people out of the buildings on stretchers, some of whom were completely covered. From the bottom of our hearts, we prayed in vain that they weren’t dead.
I called ‘Z’, she said she hadn’t been able to sleep because of the sound of debris removal. She said eight people were killed, and search dogs were looking for a three-year-old child they suspected had been thrown nearby by the blast wave.
Their streets were closed, with no traffic allowed except for residents. I heard things that were unbelievable.
She sent me two photos of the scene that looked like any other apocalyptic war photo — nothing left of life but a tangled mess of wire and concrete, with that cursed grey reigning supreme everywhere.
I told her to write down everything she saw and experienced. I was worried for her; how much can a human being endure seeing such scenes?
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