In a spectacle of bright fire against the darkness, aerial bombardments wreaked havoc on Tehran, as recounted by the city’s inhabitants. A respite to the turmoil came later the same Tuesday morning, with state-funded television announcing a halt to hostilities between Israel and Iran. The Iranian metropolis, which serves as the country’s heartland, has continuously remained a target of Israeli attacks since the inception of this simmering conflict on June 13.
The cessation of hostilities with Israel, enforced on Tuesday morning, followed an episode of heightened and prolonged aerial assault on Tehran; no such intensity had been seen since June 13 when the strife erupted. Concerned locals, in a combination of phone calls, texts and audio communications, painted a dire picture of the city’s atmosphere. Giant, seething flames lit up the otherwise dark expanse of the cityscape, countered by voluminous plumes of smoke. The initial rays of dawn signaled an end to the distressing night, as reported by a quartet of city dwellers from diverse parts of the capital.
A statement from President Trump the previous Monday evening indicated that Iran had arrived at a peaceful understanding with Israel. This mutual decision was later confirmed by Iran’s state television in the early hours of Tuesday morning. The preceding night, however, was another tale of dread for the citizens of Tehran, having experienced another alarming round of continuous bombardments.
In the throes of fear, a 54-year-old art gallery proprietor and her adolescent son sought safe haven in her parents’ apartment, their own household deemed too perilous due to the intensity of the airborne strikes. This decision followed an advisory from the Israeli military earlier the same day for civilians to vacate their district, a bustling blend of residential and commercial activity located in the heart of Tehran.
Another Tehran local, a resident of the city’s Jordan locality, corroborated the situation with footage of deafening explosions accompanied by bursts of a brilliant orange illuminating the sky. As a consequence of the havoc, a 27-year-old postgraduate scholar found himself in the darkness, electricity becoming a casualty of the blitz.
A similar fate befell the inhabitants of other districts in Tehran who reported powerlessness in more ways than one. The concentrated fear of the airborne attacks pushed numerous denizens of Chitgar, a western exurb of Tehran, out of their residences and onto the streets. The common belief was that they stood a better chance of survival under the open sky than within their homes.
As daylight broke over Tehran, a phone contact with a city dweller, following the cease-fire acknowledgement on state television, yielded a question more of hope than conviction – ‘Is the nightmare truly finished? Thank Divine Grace.’