‘I don’t want Tehran to turn into Gaza’: Iranians on Israeli strikes

Long queues in service stations and bakeries. Long lines of cars trying to escape the capital. And long and frightening nights.

The residents of Tehran – always shocked by the sudden attack of Israel against Iran in the early hours of Friday morning – speak of fear and confusion, a feeling of helplessness and contradictory emotions.

“We did not sleep for the nights,” said a 21 -year -old music student on a encrypted social media application.

“Everyone leaves but I am not. My father says that it is more honorable to die in your own house than to flee.”

“ Donya ” – She does not want to reveal her real name – is one of the many Iranians now taken in a war between a regime she hates and Israel, whose destructive power in Gaza which she witnessed on the screen from afar.

“I really don’t want my beautiful Tehran to turn into Gaza,” she said.

As for the call from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Iranians to rise up against their office management, she has a firm response.

“We don’t want Israel to save us. No foreign country has ever taken care of Iran,” she said. “Nor do we want the Islamic Republic.”

Another woman said that at the beginning, she had felt a “strange excitement” to see Israel killing Iranian military officials so powerful that she thought they would live for ever.

“Suddenly, this image of power was broken,” she told BBC Persian.

“But from the second day, when I heard that ordinary people – people I didn’t know, people like me – had also been killed, I started to feel sorrow, fear and sadness.”

And she said that her sadness turned into anger when she learned that the South Pars gas field had been hit, fearing that Israel was trying to transform Iran “into ruins”.

For the first time in her life, she said, she started preparing for the idea of ​​dying.

More than 220 people – including many women and children – have been killed since Friday, according to Iranian authorities.

Israeli authorities say Iranian missiles killed at least 24 people in Israel during the same period.

Unlike Israel, there is no warning of imminent attacks in Iran, and no shelters to run.

The missiles fall from the sky, but a campaign of car bombs in Tehran – as indicated by the Israeli and Iranian media – sewn panic and confusion.

Even some supporters of the regime would be upset by the fact that its very tuned defenses were so deeply exposed.

And, among many Iranians, distrust of the authorities is deep.

Donya used to challenge the diet and her strict dress code when leaving with her discovered hair.

Now, with her university exams postponed until next week, she stays at home.

“I’m so terrified at night,” she said. “I take pills to help me relax and try to sleep.”

The Iranian government suggested that people take shelter in mosques and metro stations.

But it is difficult, when the explosions seem to come out of nowhere.

“Tehran is a big city and yet each district was somehow affected by damage,” said another young woman in BBC Persian.

“For the moment, all we do is check the news every hour and call friends and parents whose neighborhood has been hit to make sure they are still alive.”

She and her family have now left their house to stay in an area where there are no known government buildings.

But you never know, in a country like Iran, which can live next to you.

The Israeli assault divided the Iranians, she said, some celebrating the losses of the regime, while others are angry with those who applaud Israel.

Many Iranians continue to change their minds on what they think. The divisions are bitter, even among some families.

“The situation looks like the early hours after the Titanic hit the iceberg,” said the woman.

“Some people were trying to escape, others said that it was not a big problem, and others continued to dance.”

She has always protested against Iran’s office leaders, she told the BBC, but sees what Netanyahu does to her country as “inexcusable”.

“Everyone’s life, whether they have supported attacks or not, was changed forever.

“Most Iranians, even those who oppose the government, have now realized that freedom and human rights do not come from Israeli bombs that fall in cities where defenseless civilians live.”

She added: “Most of us are afraid and worried about what will follow. We have wrapped bags with first aid supplies, food and water, just in case things get worse.”

Israel says that the Iranian armed forces have deliberately placed their command centers and their weapons inside buildings and civil areas.

Members of the Great Diaspora of Iran are also worried.

“It is difficult to transmit what it is to be Iranian at the moment,” said Dorreh Khatibi-Hill, activist and women’s rights researchers based in Leeds who is in contact with family, friends and other anti-regime activists.

“You are happy that the members of the regime – who tortured and murdered people – have come out.

“But we know that civilians die. It is a devastating humanitarian disaster.”

And Iranians do not receive specific information about what’s going on, she said.

“The main person in Iran – the supreme chief – is still alive while Iranians flee for their lives,” she adds.

“Nobody wants Iran that is transformed into other Iraq, Syria or Afghanistan. None of us wants this war. We do not want the regime either.”