‘War only builds graves’: Iranian civilians condemn Israeli missile attacks

After years of proxy conflict, the shadow war between Israel and Iran has burst open in Tehran and Tel Aviv, as tit-for-tat missile strikes again put the enemies on the brink of a devastating war.

Iranian Red Crescent volunteers work in a Tehran neighbourhood hit by a reported Israeli strike. Picture: Iranian Red Crescent/AFP

When the first Israeli missiles hit Tehran, Shahram woke to find he had nowhere to hide. As explosions ripped through his home, shaking the walls, the journalist and his wife could only take shelter under the dining room table and pray.

It was the second time, Shahram said, he had felt that kind of terror. The first was when he was a child, during the Iran-Iraq War in the late 1980s when Iraqi forces fired on the Iranian capital.

“Back then, at least, we had ­sirens and shelters,” he said. “Now we don’t even have that. There is no good in war.”

After years of proxy conflict waged in battlefields from Sanaa to Beirut, this weekend the shadow war between Israel and Iran burst open in the hearts of Tehran and Tel Aviv, as tit-for-tat missile strikes again put the two enemies on the brink of a devastating war.

Among the most haunting ­images to emerge from the devastation was that of a woman’s long black hair splayed across a crushed pink mattress, trapped between collapsed slabs of concrete. The blood trails from her scalp continued along the mattress.

Her name was Parnia Abbasi, 23, a poet and English teacher who was killed alongside three members of her family when an Israeli missile hit their block of flats in the Shahrara neighbourhood of Tehran, causing it to collapse.

Yaran Ghasemi, a two-month-old boy, was the youngest victim of the strikes. Mehdi Pouladvand, a talented rider and member of the Alborz provincial equestrian team, was killed with his father, mother and sister. Parsa Mansour, a padel player, was also among those killed in Tehran.

These casualties came after Israeli missile strikes targeted more than 200 locations across Iran, including the homes of senior Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commanders, scientists and regime officials, hitting neighbouring residential buildings occupied by civilians as well as nuclear and defence sites across the country.

The Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant in central Iran on June 14. Launched early on June 13, Israel's operation has targeted Iran's air defences and hit key nuclear and military sites. Satellite image: Maxar Technologies/AFP

Iranian officials said 78 people were killed and more than 320 injured in the attacks, which a ­Middle Eastern official who opposes Iran said he believed was the biggest blow to the country since the Islamic Revolution in 1979.

The Israel Defence Forces said three Iranian military commanders, including the head of the IRGC, were among those killed.

Attacks carried on at the weekend as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to continue for days or weeks in an attempt to “eliminate” Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile capabilities.

Through years of war with militias in Lebanon and Gaza, many in Tehran have lived relatively insulated from the battles fought by the Iranian regime in the region. Friday’s attacks changed that.

Amin, who works at a pastry shop in central Tehran and lives near the home of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, was half-asleep when he heard the first explosions.

“I didn’t think it was serious. I assumed, like previous times, they were targeting military sites around Tehran. But suddenly, a massive blast shook my entire house – not just the windows but the walls, like an earthquake. I quickly got dressed and sat in the doorway. Then I realised they were striking all over Iran,” he said over the phone, as the boom of another explosion sounded in the background.

“I was having a panic attack. My whole body was shaking. I grabbed my backpack and threw in my documents, hard drive and laptop. My brain had shut down, I didn’t know what to do.”

He sat in the doorway until 9am, when he went to work. In the streets, he could see a large number of security force personnel gathering across the city on motorcycles. It felt extremely tense, he said, yet cafes, shops and restaurants stayed open.

Flags flutter along a bridge as a plume of heavy smoke and fire rise from an oil refinery in southern Tehran, after it was hit in an overnight Israeli strike on June 15. Picture: Atta Kenare/AFP

Petrol station queues were longer than usual but people were going about their lives.

For many in Iran, the strikes brought the hypocrisy of their leaders into the spotlight. Islamic Republic officials publicly maintain they live humble lifestyles as devout revolutionaries. Iran’s supreme leader holds speeches and meetings in a modest hall without chairs or furniture to project a simple way of living. Yet Israel’s targeting of luxury penthouses in parts of northern and northeastern Tehran laid bare the opulent lives of the regime and IRGC elites.

These are neighbourhoods where morality police patrols rarely appear, where Tehran’s elite and regime officials live untouched by inflation, sanctions or danger. Luxury shops sell Louis Vuitton and Chopard, and it is common to see the children of regime officials cruising the streets in BMWs and Porsches. Now they face the ­reality of war.

Maryam, a housewife in northeast Tehran, said: “A building near us was destroyed. I can’t believe a missile hit our neighbouring alley and I saw bodies on the street. We could have died.”

Netanyahu, who has long championed a large-scale attack designed to cripple Iran’s nuclear facilities, called on Friday for the country’s population to rise up against the regime. “The time has come for the Iranian people to unite around its flag and its historic legacy, by standing up for your freedom from the evil and oppressive regime,” he said.

His often-repeated call was met with frustration by many in Iran, even those who despise the regime. Mina Akbari, a journalist and filmmaker, wrote on Instagram: “My generation grew up during the Iran-Iraq War, listening to sirens and running to shelters. Those who speak of saving Iran through war either haven’t studied history or benefit from ­destruction.

“Democracy doesn’t arrive on fighter jets. Military strikes mean deeper repression, silencing opposition and postponing freedom. Democracy is built through grassroots movements – not precision missiles. War only builds graves.”

Elsewhere in the country, the fallout from the attacks was becoming clear. In the city of Natanz, the centre of Iran’s uranium enrichment program, Israeli strikes hit an underground nuclear facility. All roads in and out of Natanz were blocked, and the 50,000 people in the area were trapped.

By (Saturday) morning, Tehran was a city cloaked in death. Dust hung in the air as police urged shopkeepers and business owners to shut their doors. The city, gripped by explosions and aerial attacks, found itself under siege, with no shelters, nowhere to hide.

A fire broke out at Iran’s South Pars gas field, the largest in the world, after what Iranian media said was an Israeli drone strike. Videos on social media showed thick grey smoke rising from a refinery as workers looked on, the first time that an Iranian refinery has been openly attacked since the Iran-Iraq War.

THE SUNDAY TIMES