Despite the strikes earlier in the day, Sahar* and her family decided to take a stroll in one of Tehran’s parks on Friday night, the eve of Eid al-Ghadir, a major Shia holiday. But, instead of the usual festive fireworks, the sky was lit up by bright red anti-aircraft missiles streaking across the horizon.
“Seeing Iranian missiles over your heads worries you, you worry what’s going to come next. Will it be a war, destruction?” said Sahar over the phone. She sent a video to the Guardian that shows people in the park hurriedly packing up and looking up as the crack of anti-aircraft munitions rings out overhead.
Iranians are reeling as the country enters its second day of open war with Israel, the most intense exchange of fire in the two countries’ histories, with a level of violence not seen in Iran since its war with Iraq in the 1980s.
Fighting started when Israel launched hundreds of airstrikes across Iran on Friday morning, killing its country’s top military leadership and hitting its nuclear facilities. Iran quickly responded with a barrage of missiles and drones, sparking a cycle of retaliatory violence between the two countries.
In Iran, which has had much of its air defence systems crippled in the initial wave of Israeli airstrikes, the death toll continues to climb, with at least 138 people killed and more than 320 wounded. About 60 of the total, including 20 children, were killed in one Israeli attack on a housing complex in Tehran on Saturday, according to state media.
At least three people were killed and dozens wounded in Israel by Iranian strikes over the last two days.
The ferocity of Israel’s strikes and the apparent ease with which it has decapitated Iran’s military has left Iranians, who grew up with an image of a military and security apparatus that was supposedly impregnable, stunned.
In the first hours of Israel’s attacks on Friday, Iran’s military was caught flatfooted. Israeli jets flew across Iranian skies seemingly unchallenged, while drones reportedly planted weeks before sprung up from secret locations within the country itself.
“Israel’s attacks came as a shock, with high-profile killings and the destruction it brought, and the fact that Tehran was attacked,” said Amin*, a businessman from Sistan Baluchestan.
The sudden assault provoked confusion in the country.
Traffic on the capital’s city’s roads was light as people sheltered in their homes and bread lines grew long as people prepared themselves for further days of war. A resident of Tehran said that goods were in short supply at the shops and markets she visited as people stocked up on supplies.
Internet coverage was intermittent, and most of the people the Guardian spoke to struggled to send voice notes and messages.
“We are panicking. Today, I had a flight for Mashhad from Sistan Baluchestan and it was cancelled. I am in a state of limbo,” Amin said.
Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has threatened “severe punishment” in revenge for the attacks. The country has sent repeated waves of ballistic missiles and drones at Israel since Friday, some of which hit Tel Aviv.
Israel’s defence minister, Israel Katz, in turn, warned Khamenei that “Tehran will burn” if it continues its attacks against Israel.
There was a sense of satisfaction among some Iranians as they watched footage of missiles hitting Tel Aviv, and state TV played images on a loop. People in Tehran sat together watching jumbo screens, cheering as videos showed Iranian ballistic missiles targeting Israel.
“Many people are celebrating and happy for Iran’s retaliation to Israeli aggression and are asking that Israel be taught a lesson. People in Iran hate Israel as we know it’s a mad country ruining the region,” said Sahar.
Analysts said that Iran’s leadership had few good options in front of it as it decided what to do next in response to Israeli attacks. The network of proxies Iran had built across the Middle East to defend itself over the last four decades has been conspicuously silent since Friday, offering words of support but little more.
“Iran is alone – unlike Israel, it doesn’t have the back up of a superpower. But the problem is from Iran’s perspective they see this as an existential peril. I don’t think they see any exit ramps,” said Ali Vaez, the International Crisis Group’s Iran project director.
The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, has said the US will support Israel in a military confrontation with Iran, and the US has warned Iran that there would be “dire consequences” if it or any of its proxies targeted US citizens or bases in the region.
Iran’s leadership does not only fear a military defeat by Israel, but also internal unrest if its security apparatus is shaken. The Iranian government’s popularity has waned in recent years and it faced nationwide protests in 2022 after the death of a woman arrested by police for not wearing a headscarf.
On Saturday, a separatist Kurdish party – the Council of the Free Life Party of Kurdistan (PJAK), which has clashed with the Iranian government, issued a statement calling for the people of Iran to mobilise against the Iranian government.
Iranian riot police were pre-emptively deployed in Tehran amid calls from some student groups for protests, three students told the Guardian.
“The regime is trying to do two things in parallel: it is trying to play on Iranian’s strong sense of nationalism … and it’s trying to crack down internally and make sure there is no space for any organised opposition,” Vaez said.
The Israeli attacks and the prospect of a wider war has had a rally-around-the-flag effect for some Iranians, even those who do not count themselves as nationalists.
“War brings destruction and that’s the last thing anyone wants. But it’s been imposed on Iran,” Amin said.
* Names have been changed
