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It was the initial daybreak of the business week. Children had reached their schools, employees had settled into their workplaces, and businesses had commenced trade. Subsequently, the bombardments started.
For weeks, the populace of Iran’s metropolis had felt apprehensive, as US President Donald Trump escalated hostilities with the Islamic nation. Nevertheless, it proved startling when, at 9:38 am local time on Saturday, powerful detonations began to echo across the urban area.
Columns of smoke ascended over Tehran, causing streets to become congested with gridlock as individuals hastened homeward to ascertain their families’ well-being. It swiftly became evident that the US and Israel had launched attacks.
“I was performing my customary early-morning workout outside when I perceived the blasts,” recounted an elderly female retiree residing in Ekbatan, located in western Tehran. “Everyone was scurrying homeward. As was I. People were informing one another that the highest authority’s and the chief executive’s headquarters had been struck.”
The assaults on the metropolis encompassed bombardments within the Pasteur Street vicinity, in proximity to both the supreme leader’s and president’s complexes. Iran’s external affairs chief, Abbas Araghchi, informed NBC that President Masoud Pezeshkian and supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei remained living “to my knowledge.”
A merchant adjacent to Pasteur Street stated: “The blast was so enormous that we believed an entire retail complex was devastated.” The retail establishment, he mentioned, was not as severely affected as residents had imagined, yet it promptly ceased operations.
Visual recordings uploaded to social media and authenticated by the FT displayed debris, blazes, and incinerated vehicles within a targeted thoroughfare in Tehran’s Narmak area, where former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad resides. Iranian news agencies conveyed that three of his personal security detail perished, without clarifying if Ahmadinejad himself had survived.
Additional bombardments were documented nationwide, extending from Chabahar in the southeastern region to mid-region Isfahan and Tabriz in the northwestern area.
Parents hurried to retrieve their children from school. Others frantically purchased supplies or made their way to automated teller machines, concerned that banks might cease operations. Lines materialized at gas stations and bread shops.
Midday saw all the shops in Tehran’s main market, the Grand Bazaar, cease operations. Following the US and Israel’s attack, notwithstanding continuing negotiations between Tehran and the Trump government, a proprietor in the historic marketplace remarked: “It appears an accord cannot be reached without a major conflict preceding it.”
These assaults impacted an already distressed populace. The twelve-day conflict Israel waged against Iran last year — with brief US participation — remains vivid in the Iranian consciousness. Furthermore, they are still grappling with the severe suppression by officials against anti-government demonstrators last month, an event that resulted in numerous fatalities.
Ali, employed by a commercial firm, promptly proceeded to purchase powdered dairy product for his offspring. However, he discovered that drugstore displays had been emptied. It was only after checking fifteen establishments that he located any dairy provisions.
The national broadcaster implored individuals to remain calm and asserted that Iran’s responsive assaults on US and Israeli objectives in the region had proven effective.
“Indeed, it’s a state of conflict,” stated the national television presenter. “But engaging in frenzied purchasing . . . will only exacerbate matters for you.”
The network announced that Tehran’s subway system would continue functioning until midnight, coaches would operate normally “with full occupancy,” and fire brigades stood “fully prepared” for any crisis. It cited government agencies, which claimed ample supplies of provisions and fuel, and no accounts of utility interruptions.
Yet the presenter cautioned: “Americans have embarked upon an unalterable course . . . this will transform it into a localized conflict.”
Trump declared that Saturday that the US and Israel had initiated an “extensive and continuing offensive” targeting the Islamic nation, and he urged Iranians to depose their regime.
Araghchi reacted vehemently to the aggression, deeming it a “flagrant breach of the fundamental tenets of the UN Charter and an egregious offense against global tranquility and safety.” He implored nations in the region to prevent their domain from being utilized for the offensives.
Iranian national press reported that educational institutions were struck in the weekend’s bombardments: one in Narmak, another in Qazvin to Tehran’s west, and a third in Minab in Iran’s southern reaches.
A projectile assault on an elementary educational facility in Minab claimed 63 lives, among them young students, and wounded 92 individuals, according to Minab’s regional administrator.
Mahmoud Nabavian, a prominent conservative clergyman, informed national broadcasting that Iranian forces were resolute. “Our combatants have not returned home since the June conflict. This is what divine devotion achieves,” he stated, asserting that “triumph is more imminent than ever before.”
Samaneh, a 34-year-old woman employed at a cosmetic parlor, expressed that a measure of solace emerged with the commencement of bombardments after weeks of prolonged apprehension.
“What sort of existence is this?” she questioned. “I merely require this predicament to resolve definitively so we understand our position . . . I am weary of this degree of unpredictability.”