Just as Iranians began their workweek on Saturday morning, U.S. and Israeli strikes sent panicked residents of Tehran into the streets and parents racing back to schools where they had just dropped off their children.
Chaos and uncertainty set in as explosions shook the densely populated city, Iran’s capital, according to witnesses who spoke to The New York Times.
Ali, a businessman from Tehran, said in a text message that he was sitting in his office with many employees when they heard two explosions along with fighter jets streaking over the sky. Employees ran screaming out of the building, he said. He, like several other residents who spoke to The Times, asked not to be identified by his full name because he feared for his safety.
From the leafy, upscale district of Mirdamad, resident Hamidreza Zand described seeing at least 10 fighter jets flying overhead as locals ran into the streets and some drivers abandoned cars on streets choked with traffic. With ambulance sirens wailing in the background, other residents scrambled to pick their children up from school.
“I rushed to school to get my daughter from middle school. The girls were hiding under the stairs and crying,” said Ali Zeinalipoor, whom a Times reporter reached on the Clubhouse social media app. “The principal did not know what had happened — everyone was so scared.”
From the roof of her apartment in Tehran’s northern Velenjak district, Golshan Fathi described seeing a second round of fighter jets.
“People are standing on the roof looking at the sky, pointing down. You can hear women screaming. Some of my neighbors are running to their cars,” she said. “It feels like we are in a movie.”
In the Pasdaran area, where a large compound belonging to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards forces is, residents heard multiple explosions that shook their windows.
“My children are crying and scared, we are huddling in the bathroom, we don’t know what to do. This is terrifying,” Esfandiar, an engineer living in the area, wrote in a text message.
As reports of explosions hitting other cities across Iran began to emerge on local media, telecommunications began to falter. A resident named Mahsa said she was fleeing Pasdaran without being able to contact her loved ones to tell them where she was going.
When Israel launched surprise attacks on Iran last June, it targeted mostly military and nuclear sites and strikes in Tehran and assassinated its top military chain of command. The strikes on Saturday appeared far broader, including political targets like the intelligence ministry, the judiciary and the Pasteur gated compound where the president and supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, generally reside, according to residents in the area and local news outlets.
The attacks come at a fragile moment for Iran, whose government launched a brutal crackdown last month to stamp out nationwide protests demanding an end to Iran’s clerical rule.
Not all Iranians were angry as they watched the plumes of smoke rising from the blasts, said Arian, a resident of the Ekteban township west of the capital, who said some of his relatives were cheering the strikes. He said he could hear voices outside his building chanting, “Long live the shah,” a reference to Iran’s monarch, who was deposed in the 1979 revolution that brought the Islamic Republic to power.
As warplanes launched strikes across the country, President Trump released a video statement announcing to Iranians that “the hour of your freedom is at hand,” and urging them to rise up gainst the government once the bombing stops.
Some Iranians ridiculed that call.
“The only thing on our mind right now is to get to safety,” Laleh, a lawyer and mother of two, said in a phone interview. “Nobody is thinking of protesting right now.”
Farnaz Fassihi is the United Nations bureau chief for The Times, leading coverage of the organization. She also covers Iran and has written about conflict in the Middle East for 15 years.
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