Residents of Tehran fear Israeli attacks: « My heart no longer stopped banging »

Residents of Tehran and other Iranian cities have been living in fear of Israeli bombs and rockets for three days and nights. Do they happen to live with a nuclear physicist in the neighborhood involved in Irans Nuclear program or do they stay close to a military complex without being aware of it? Such questions can suddenly be a matter of life or death.

« It was completely frightening, » the 62-year-old Roya said after the first bombing of Friday opposite a reporter of Al Jazeera in Tehran. « My heart no longer stopped banging. I saw smoke on the horizon and at first I thought that all the attacks had taken place far away, but when I saw pictures later, I discovered that a house had also touched a few streets away from us. »

Unlike in Israel, there are not shelters everywhere, let alone that there would be ‘safe rooms’ in private homes, as is often the case in Israel. Instead, the authorities recommend hiding in metro stations, mosques and school buildings. Others are looking for a good gone in car tunnels.

Weapon factories

On Sunday, Israel warned Iranian citizens to avoid the surroundings of arms factories. Apparently they were the next goal. The Israeli Minister of Defense, Israel Katz, announced earlier That « Tehran will burn, » if the Islamic regime would continue to fire missiles on Israel. The Iranian Foreign Minister, Abbas Araghchi, then announced that Iran is willing to immediately stop his counterattacks, when Israel also stops his attacks on Iran.

The Iranian authorities have not been shooting with death figures in recent days. The first day, 78 people would have died, including generals, scholars and random citizens. A fourteen floors building was hit on Saturday. In addition, sixty people would have died, including 29 children. Hundreds of injured people have also been wounded. Also Sunday afternoon the inhabitants of the capital were startled again by the drowning of explosions.

Many Iranians rushed to bakeries and stores to stock up food

In the meantime, the Iranian government is doing its best to control the reporting on Israeli bombing. Iranian journalists told you to receive instructions to share only videos that illustrated how Israel had injured and killed innocent citizens, so that hidden that prominent employees of the regime had also been killed. « Only reporters designated by the regime can visit the places of the explosions, » reported The Guardian Saturday.

Significant damage

Following the warning from Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu that the battle with Iran can take weeks, many Iranians hurried to bakeries and stores to stock up food. Long lines for gas stations were also formed.

Fuel can also quickly become scarce, because Israel in the night from Saturday to Sunday The most important oil storage At Tehran and a refinery bombarded, creating a major fire. A day before, Israel had already bombed the PARS gas field, after which a fire also emerged. The fear is that more of such bombing will follow.

It is hard to say how great the damage is with Irans Nuclear installations – according to Israel the main purpose of his offensive against Iran. Especially at Natanz in the center of Iran, substantial damage has been done to various buildings above ground. But there have been no reports of substantial damage to underground nuclear facilities. The latter also applies to Fordo, the most important Iranian center for enriching uranium.

To share

Mail the editors