Israel issues Tehran evacuation order as Iran threatens to leave nuclear weapons treaty
Israeli forces have issued an evacuation order to residents of a large part of Tehran, warning them of the imminent bombing of 'military infrastructure' in the area in a social media post very similar to those regularly directed at Palestinians in Gaza over the past 20 months.
The post on Monday on X was from the account of the Israel Defense Forces' Arabic spokesperson, Col Avichay Adraee, and is a further sign of the evolving nature of the Israeli campaign against Iran, which began with attacks on air defences, nuclear sites and the military chain of command, but appears to have drifted towards a war of attrition focused on Iran's oil and gas industry and on the capital.
Related: Israel attack on Iranian state broadcaster shown live on TV
In another sign of the changing targets of the Israeli offensive, Iran's state TV announced on Monday evening during a live transmission that it was under attack.
The sound of an explosion could be heard, and the news presenter hurried off camera as dust and debris appeared in the studio. Cries of 'Allahu Akbar' or 'God is greatest' could be heard off-screen and the broadcast abruptly switched to pre-recorded programming. Live programming resumed some time later.
Adraee's online post included a map depicting a significant area of the third district in northern Tehran shaded in red in the same manner he has presented evacuation orders for Palestinians.
'Dear citizens, for your safety, please leave the described area in the 3rd district of Tehran immediately,' the message said in Farsi.
'In the coming hours, the Israeli army will attack the military infrastructure of the Iranian regime in this area, as it has done in recent days in Tehran. Your presence in this area endangers your life.'
Later on Monday, the US president, Donald Trump, urged everyone to immediately evacuate Tehran, and reiterated that Iran should have signed a nuclear deal with the US.
'IRAN CAN NOT HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON. I said it over and over again! Everyone should immediately evacuate Tehran!' he said in a post on Truth Social.
Speaking to personnel at Tel Nof air force base, the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, confirmed the evacuation orders.
'The Israeli air force controls the skies over Tehran. This changes the entire campaign,' he said.
'When we control the skies over Tehran, we strike regime targets, as opposed to the criminal Iranian regime which targets our civilians and comes to kill women and children. We tell the people of Tehran to evacuate, and we act.'
Netanyahu later said killing Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Hosseini Khamenei, would 'end the conflict' in what would be another ominous escalation.
After the surprise Israeli attack on Friday morning, Iran has carried out retaliatory missile strikes on Israeli cities, focusing on the most populated areas between Tel Aviv and the port of Haifa.
Both sides have targeted each other's oil and gas facilities, increasing the threat of environmental disaster, and explosions were reported on Monday near oil refineries in southern Tehran.
Earlier on Monday, Iran threatened to leave the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT) as Israeli bombing raids entered a fourth day, underlining the conflict's potential to trigger a broader war and Tehran's race to construct a nuclear weapon.
The human cost of the war continued to escalate with both sides broadening their range of targets, as G7 leaders convened in the Canadian Rockies with no clear plan to end the conflict. There were reports on Monday that Trump was refusing to sign a joint statement calling for the conflict to be scaled down.
'They should talk, and they should talk immediately,' Trump said of Tehran during the summit. 'I'd say Iran is not winning this war.'
The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday that Iran was sending a message to Israel and the US through Arab intermediaries that it was seeking a cessation of hostilities and a resumption of talks on its nuclear programme.
The same report, however, said its stance was that it would only go back to the table if Israel halted its offensive. There was no sign on Monday of Israel contemplating a pause.
Iran's health ministry said 224 people in Iran had been killed by Israeli attacks, 90% of them civilian, and more than 1,400 had been injured. Israel's defence minister, meanwhile, threatened further bombing strikes on Tehran, where an exodus of residents has been reported, clogging roads out of the capital.
The Iranian Red Crescent said that three of its rescuers were killed in an Israeli airstrike in northwest Tehran, adding: 'This incident is not only a crime against international humanitarian law but also a blatant attack on humanity and morality.'
In Israel, at least 23 civilians have been killed in Iran's retaliatory missile strikes since Israel's initial surprise attack on Friday morning, and nearly 600 have been injured, according to official sources.
The Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson, Esmaeil Baghaei, announced on Monday that Iran's parliament, the Majlis, was preparing a bill that would withdraw the country from the 1968 NPT agreement, which obliges it to forego nuclear weapons and to undergo international inspections to verify compliance. Baghaei added that Tehran remained opposed to the development of weapons of mass destruction.
The country's president, Masoud Pezeshkian, also insisted that Iran did not intend to develop nuclear weapons but would pursue its right to nuclear energy and research. He pointed out that Ali Khamenei, had issued a religious edict against weapons of mass destruction.
Israel is the only Middle East state with nuclear weapons and did not sign the NPT, but has never formally acknowledged its arsenal.
It is seeking to maintain its monopoly with airstrikes against Iranian nuclear facilities, claiming that Tehran was close to building a bomb. Previous assessments by US intelligence and the UN nuclear watchdog found no evidence that Iran had begun work on assembling a nuclear weapon.
Israeli critics of the offensive say it cannot destroy Iran's reserve of nuclear knowhow – though Israel has targeted Iranian nuclear scientists, claiming to have killed 14 – and could push the leadership into ordering the assembly of nuclear warheads.
Rafael Grossi, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, told the BBC it was very likely all the roughly 15,000 centrifuges at Iran's biggest uranium enrichment plant at Natanz had been badly damaged or destroyed because of a power cut caused by an Israeli strike.
But he said there had been very limited or no damage at the separate Fordow plant.
There were reports on Monday of Israeli strikes on the Tehran headquarters of the Revolutionary Guards al-Quds force, an expeditionary arm deployed in foreign wars.
Despite Israeli claims to have air superiority over much of Iran, Iranian forces have still been able to launch ballistic missiles from their territory and some continue to evade Israel's multi-layered air defences. Israel Defense Forces officials estimate that it is has been able to intercept 80-90% of Iran's missiles, with 5-10% hitting actual residential areas.
Eight more Israelis were killed overnight by Iranian missile strikes, including four in Petah Tikva where a missile hit an apartment block. Three people died from blasts in Haifa and an elderly man was killed when his home collapsed from the shockwave from an explosion in Bnei Brak, east of Tel Aviv.
Iran's Revolutionary Guards claimed to have begun 'more powerful and deadly' strikes and to have found a way of causing confusion in Israeli air defence systems. There was no immediate way of independently verifying the claim.
US forces have so far helped Israel intercept Iranian missiles, but have not taken part, at least overtly, in offensive bombing operations. On Monday, however, Reuters quoted two unnamed US officials as saying the movement of more than 30 military refuelling aircraft to Europe was intended to give Trump more options in the Middle East. Such tankers allow warplanes to refuel in mid-air and enable more sorties a day in wartime.
The US defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, said on Monday he had ordered the deployment of additional defensive capabilities to the Middle East, but did not disclose what military capabilities he sent to the region.
As Tehran residents evacuated the capital in increasing numbers, Israel's defence minister, Israel Katz, threatened to make Tehranis 'pay the price' for Ali Khamenei's decision to keep firing missiles at Israel in retaliation for the Israeli attack.
The Iranian state-backed news agency Fars reported that the authorities had executed a man found guilty of spying for Israel's intelligence agency, the Mossad. It was the third execution of an alleged spy in recent weeks.
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Washington Post
20 minutes ago
- Washington Post
Fear stalks Tehran as Israel bombards, shelters fill up and communicating grows harder
NEW YORK — The streets of Tehran are empty, businesses closed, communications patchy at best. With no bona fide bomb shelters open to the public, panicked masses spend restless nights on the floors of metro stations as strikes boom overhead . This is Iran's capital city, just under a week into a fierce Israeli blitz to destroy the country's nuclear program and its military capabilities. After knocking out much of Iran's air defense system, Israel says its warplanes have free rein over the city's skies. U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday told Tehran's roughly 10 million residents to evacuate 'immediately.' Thousands have fled, spending hours in gridlock as they head toward the suburbs, the Caspian Sea, or even Armenia or Turkey . But others — those elderly and infirm — are stuck in high-rise apartment buildings. Their relatives fret: what to do? Israeli strikes on Iran have killed at least 585 people and wounded over 1,300, a human rights group says. Local media , themselves targets of bombardment, have stopped reporting on the attacks, leaving Iranians in the dark. There are few visible signs of state authority: Police appear largely undercover, air raid sirens are unreliable, and there's scant information on what to do in case of attack. Shirin, 49, who lives in the southern part of Tehran, said every call or text to friends and family in recent days has felt like it could be the last. 'We don't know if tomorrow we will be alive,' she said. Many Iranians feel conflicted . Some support Israel's targeting of Iranian political and military officials they see as repressive. Others staunchly defend the Islamic Republic and retaliatory strikes on Israel. Then, there are those who oppose Iran's rulers — but still don't want to see their country bombed. The Associated Press interviewed five people in Iran and one Iranian American in the U.S. over the phone. All spoke either on the condition of anonymity or only allowed their first names to be used, for fear of retribution from the state against them or their families. Most of the calls ended abruptly and within minutes, cutting off conversations as people grew nervous — or because the connection dropped. Iran's government has acknowledged disrupting internet access . It says it's to protect the country, though that has blocked average Iranians from getting information from the outside world. Iranians in the diaspora wait anxiously for news from relatives. One, an Iranian American human rights researcher in the U.S., said he last heard from relatives when some were trying to flee Tehran earlier in the week. He believes that lack of gas and traffic prevented them from leaving. The most heartbreaking interaction, he said, was when his older cousins — with whom he grew up in Iran — told him 'we don't know where to go. If we die, we die.' 'Their sense was just despair,' he said. Some families have made the decision to split up. A 23-year-old Afghan refugee who has lived in Iran for four years said he stayed behind in Tehran but sent his wife and newborn son out of the city after a strike Monday hit a nearby pharmacy. 'It was a very bad shock for them,' he said. Some, like Shirin, said fleeing was not an option. The apartment buildings in Tehran are towering and dense. Her father has Alzheimer's and needs an ambulance to move. Her mother's severe arthritis would make even a short trip extremely painful. Still, hoping escape might be possible, she spent the last several days trying to gather their medications. Her brother waited at a gas station until 3 a.m., only to be turned away when the fuel ran out. As of Monday, gas was being rationed to under 20 liters (5 gallons) per driver at stations across Iran after an Israeli strike set fire to the world's largest gas field. Some people, like Arshia, said they are just tired. 'I don't want to go in traffic for 40 hours, 30 hours, 20 hours, just to get to somewhere that might get bombed eventually,' he said. The 22-year-old has been staying in the house with his parents since the initial Israeli strike. He said his once-lively neighborhood of Saadat Abad in northwestern Tehran is now a ghost town. Schools are closed. Very few people even step outside to walk their dogs. Most local stores have run out of drinking water and cooking oil. Others closed. Still, Arshia said the prospect of finding a new place is too daunting. 'We don't have the resources to leave at the moment,' he said. No air raid sirens went off as Israeli strikes began pounding Tehran before dawn Friday. For many, it was an early sign civilians would have to go it alone. During the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, Tehran was a low-slung city, many homes had basements to shelter in, and there were air raid drills and sirens. Now the capital is packed with close-built high-rise apartments without shelters. 'It's a kind of failing of the past that they didn't build shelters,' said a 29-year-old Tehran resident who left the city Monday. 'Even though we've been under the shadow of a war, as long as I can remember.' Her friend's boyfriend was killed while going to the store. 'You don't really expect your boyfriend — or your anyone, really — to leave the house and never return when they just went out for a routine normal shopping trip,' she said. Those who choose to relocate do so without help from the government. The state has said it is opening mosques, schools and metro stations for use as shelters. Some are closed, others overcrowded. Hundreds crammed into one Tehran metro station Friday night. Small family groups lay on the floor. One student, a refugee from another country, said she spent 12 hours in the station with her relatives. 'Everyone there was panicking because of the situation,' she said. 'Everyone doesn't know what will happen next, if there is war in the future and what they should do. People think nowhere is safe for them.' Soon after leaving the station, she saw that Israel had warned a swath of Tehran to evacuate. 'For immigrant communities, this is so hard to live in this kind of situation,' she said, explaining she feels like she has nowhere to escape to — especially not her home country, which she asked not be identified. For Shirin, the hostilities are bittersweet. Despite being against the theocracy and its treatment of women, the idea that Israel may determine the future does not sit well with her. 'As much as we want the end of this regime, we didn't want it to come at the hands of a foreign government,' she said. 'We would have preferred that if there were to be a change, it would be the result of a people's movement in Iran.' Meanwhile, the 29-year-old who left Tehran had an even more basic message for those outside Iran: 'I just want people to remember that whatever is happening here, it's not routine business for us. People's lives here — people's livelihoods — feel as important to them as they feel to anyone in any other place. How would you feel if your city or your country was under bombardment by another country, and people were dying left and right?' 'We are kind of like, this can't be happening. This can't be my life.'
The Hill
24 minutes ago
- The Hill
Trump weighs joining Israel in bombing Iran
Morning Report is The Hill's a.m. newsletter. Sign up here or subscribe in the box below: Thank you for signing up! Subscribe to more newsletters here President Trump is weighing perhaps one of the most consequential decisions yet of his presidency: direct U.S. involvement in a Middle East war. The president on Tuesday signaled he is considering joining Israel in bombing Iran to deal a permanent blow to its nuclear program. It marks a major shift for the president, who only days ago insisted the U.S. would not join Israel in its attacks on Tehran. Following a Situation Room meeting and conversations with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump is considering strikes among a range of other options, hours after he publicly pressed Iran to accept his terms for a nuclear deal. Israeli officials said Tuesday that Israel will achieve its objectives against Iran within a week or two, and continued to pound Tehran with airstrikes overnight. Iran, meanwhile, is preparing missiles for a potential counterattack on U.S. bases in the region. The road ahead is complicated, The Hill's Niall Stanage writes in The Memo, not least because there are stark differences within Trump's base over the merits of getting involved in foreign conflicts in Iran or anywhere else. The end goal of U.S. strikes is also unclear: Would the White House limit itself to striking Iran's nuclear site — or seek to provoke a wide-ranging regime change by targeting Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. On Tuesday, Trump called for Iran's 'UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER' and raised the possibility of U.S. strikes against Khamenei. 'He is an easy target, but is safe there — We are not going to take him out (kill!), at least not for now,' Trump wrote on social media. The New York Times: How Trump shifted on Iran under pressure from Israel. As the U.S. military positions itself to potentially join Israel's assault, perhaps the biggest question facing Trump is whether the U.S. will drop bunker buster bombs, known as GBU-57, on Iran's Fordow nuclear site, a move Iran hawks say is necessary to eliminate Tehran's nuclear threat. Israel does not possess such a bomb, The Hill's Laura Kelly reports, believed to be the only armament capable of destroying the highly protected nuclear plant buried deep in an Iranian mountain, nor the U.S. B-2 stealth bomber to drop it from. Trump has publicly urged Iran to accept his terms for a nuclear deal, but Netanyahu has shown no interest in negotiating after launching Israel's largest military operation ever against the regional rival. That has former and current Israeli officials pressing the U.S. to enter the conflict. Former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told CNN on Monday that Trump has 'the option to change the Middle East and influence the world.' Civilians in both countries are reeling from repeated missile barrages. In Israel, people have taken shelter in stairwells and bomb shelters, and are coping with Tehran's ability to penetrate the country's sophisticated defense shield. The U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem remains closed until Friday. Many Iranians reacted with fear and dismay at Trump's instruction to 'immediately evacuate Tehran.' ▪ The New York Times: The U.N.'s nuclear watchdog said it had information suggesting that two centrifuge production facilities in Iran had been hit. ▪ The Hill: Trump supporters are divided over the possible use of the 'bunker buster' in Iran. ▪ The Hill: What is a 'bunker buster' bomb and how does it work? ▪ The Hill: Half of Americans view Iran as an enemy to the U.S., a new survey shows. Experts have said Trump faces the biggest military decision since the U.S. withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan in 2021, under former President Biden. The withdrawal, which was widely criticized, resulted in a resurgence of the Taliban, which sharply restricted human rights in Afghanistan. Former U.S. Central Command Cmdr. Gen. Frank McKenzie, who served during Trump's first term, told Bloomberg TV the president 'actually has a unique credibility with Iran because he gave the order to strike Qassem Soleimani back in early 2020.' McKenzie said Soleimani's death markedly weakened Iran, and if Trump decides to hit the target, the U.S. probably could set the Iranian nuclear program back but not eradicate it. WAR POWERS DEBATE: A bipartisan group of House members on Tuesday — led by Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) — introduced a war powers resolution to prohibit U.S. involvement in Iran as its conflict with Israel intensifies, signaling they may force a vote on the matter. Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) introduced a similar resolution in the upper chamber on Monday. Noting the potential costs of U.S. involvement in the conflict, Kaine said Tuesday on the Senate floor that 'engaging in a war against Iran — a third war in the Middle East since 2001 — would be a catastrophic blunder for this country.' Sen. Shelley Moore Capito ( said on 'The Hill on NewsNation' Tuesday night that she thinks Trump will opt for 'a peaceful solution' but 'I don't want to take any of the tools out of his toolbox at this point.' Vice President Vance detailed the White House's thinking in a lengthy social media post, saying the president has thus far shown 'remarkable restraint.' JULY 4 DEADLINE IN QUESTION: House and Senate Republicans are coming up short on the clock and with votes to muscle the president's legislative wish list to his desk by the Fourth of July. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) is getting heat from members of the GOP conference over the Finance Committee's approach to Trump's 'big, beautiful bill,' which largely ignores GOP senators' hand-wringing about Medicaid cuts and the quick phaseout of clean-energy tax credits, reports The Hill's Alexander Bolton. GOP Sens. Rand Paul (Ky.) and Ron Johnson (Wis.) have both threatened to vote 'no.' That means moderate Republican Sens. Susan Collins (Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), among others, are emboldened to demand their own alterations and modifications. The changes proposed to the House-passed bill don't sit well with House conservatives, posing yet another challenge, even as Vice President Vance on Tuesday said Trump's potentially legacy-enhancing legislation can clear what has always been an ambitious Senate-selected deadline. Referring to Collins, Vance said, 'She's got some concerns. And other folks have concerns. You just have to work through them.' Another hurdle: The level of debt held by the public is estimated by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office to total about 124 percent of the nation's economic output by 2035 if the House Republican bill were to become law. That's viewed by many economists as an unsustainable fiscal proposition. GENIUS ADDED UP: The Senate on Tuesday overwhelmingly voted for legislation to create a regulatory framework for dollar-backed cryptocurrencies known as stablecoins, viewed as a major milestone for the crypto industry. The vote for the GENIUS Act was 68-30 and marked the first significant crypto bill that cleared the Senate, The Hill's Julia Shapero noted. The legislation now heads to the House. ANOTHER HIGH-PROFILE ICE CLASH: New York City mayoral candidate Brad Lander (D), the city's comptroller, was under arrest for several hours Tuesday by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents after he tried to escort a migrant through an immigration court hallway. The migrant was arrested while ICE agents, filmed by a journalist, separated Lander from the man, pushed him against a wall and handcuffed him. The city's comptroller was released without charges after being detained. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D), who later accompanied Lander from the building following his release, initially was turned down when she asked to speak with the city official. 'You don't have the authority to arrest U.S. citizens,' Lander was heard in video telling agents as they grabbed him. 'I'm not obstructing. I'm standing right here in the hallway.' Some New York Republicans, as well as a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), defended ICE agents' actions and suggested Lander was impeding law enforcement while angling for media attention to help his mayoral campaign. 'The rule of law is not fine, and our constitutional democracy is not fine,' Lander told reporters following his release. It's the latest high-profile clash involving the immigration agency as the Trump administration steps up its enforcement efforts. Federal agents this month pulled Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) out of a room in Los Angeles and handcuffed him when he introduced himself and tried to question Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem during a news conference. Last month, federal agents arrested Newark, N.J., Mayor Ras Baraka (D) and later criminally charged Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-N.J.) following a clash outside an immigration detention center in the city. Trump ordered ICE this week to increase the number of migrants without legal status who are rounded up and deported from Democratic-led cities and communities that endorse 'sanctuary' protections for immigrants. MORE POLITICS: In Virginia's Tuesday's primaries, former Norfolk delegate Jerrauld 'Jay' Jones declared victory for the Democratic nod for attorney general while the party's choice for lieutenant governor was too close to call before midnight. The Associated Press called the AG race for Jones late Tuesday night; DDHQ has not yet called the race. State Sen. Ghazala Hashmi (D), locked in a tight contest for lieutenant governor with former Richmond mayor Levar Stoney and Virginia Beach state Sen. Aaron Rouse, declared victory late Tuesday as votes were still being tallied. Virginia voters, whose choices are watched as a potential early test of what's to come in next year contests around the country, expect the state's first-ever female governor, with Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D) facing off against Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears (R) at the top of the ticket. The Hill's Julia Manchester shares early takeaways from the Democratic primaries. In Maine, Republican Sen. Susan Collins, 72, says she intends to seek reelection next year, but what Democrats want to know is if Gov. Janet Mills (D), seen as perhaps the party's best chance to defeat Collins, will enter the race. The governor, 77, has not always sounded enthusiastic when commenting on the possibility of another campaign. SUPREME COURT: A group of plaintiffs suing Trump over his 'reciprocal' tariffs, which the president unveiled at the White House in April, said they asked the Supreme Court to leapfrog a lower court to more quickly determine the legality of the levies. Agreeing to the request would effectively skip a judicial step, a rare move for the high court. Two educational toy companies want the justices to intervene to schedule oral arguments for this fall, possibly as early as September. Meanwhile, on Tuesday, eight of the Supreme Court justices released annual financial disclosure reports, detailing book revenues, travel and speaking fees. Justice Samuel Alito sought a 90-day extension. The court's term ends within weeks and there are 21 rulings outstanding. Many of the biggest cases, argued between December and May, are still on the docket. GROUP OF SIX: As their summit wrapped up Tuesday in Canada, six of the Group of Seven (G7) leaders were trying to show their group still has the clout to shape world events despite Trump's early departure to deal with the emerging situation in the Middle East. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and his counterparts from Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Japan were joined by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte to discuss Russia's relentless war. Zelensky left the summit with new aid from Canada, but said diplomacy is in 'crisis' as he missed the chance to press Trump for more weapons. ▪ The Wall Street Journal: Zelensky's arrival was overshadowed by Trump's exit. ▪ Politico: Trump hinted at no more U.S. sanctions on Russia at the G7 summit. GAZA: As the world's focus shifts to the conflict between Israel and Iran, dozens of Palestinians have been killed in recent days near aid distribution sites in Gaza, according to the territory's health ministry. Israeli forces in recent weeks have repeatedly used lethal force against Palestinian civilians to control crowds on the approaches to new aid sites, forcing many to choose between food and the risk of getting shot. The Guardian: Witnesses describe 'horror' after Israeli forces fire at Palestinians waiting for aid trucks. And finally … 🪶A tropical 'snakebird' recently set bird lovers aflutter in Boulder, Colo., with its long neck, fanciful plumage and underwater hunting skills. The visiting anhinga bird, previously spotted in Colorado as far back as 1931, is more common in steamy Florida and in Mexican wetlands. It's the first known 'chaseable' anhinga in the state's history, meaning human admirers have been able to follow the visitor during its Boulder tour. Other anhingas never stayed around long enough to entertain crowds. 'I was pretty surprised,' said Scott Taylor, director of the University of Colorado's Mountain Research Station. 'It's just the fourth record of one of these birds in the state of Colorado, so it was pretty exciting to hear about it.' Thanks for reading! Sign up for more newsletters from The Hill here. See you next time!
Associated Press
27 minutes ago
- Associated Press
Fear stalks Tehran as Israel bombards, shelters fill up and communicating grows harder
NEW YORK (AP) — The streets of Tehran are empty, businesses closed, communications patchy at best. With no bona fide bomb shelters open to the public, panicked masses spend restless nights on the floors of metro stations as strikes boom overhead. This is Iran's capital city, just under a week into a fierce Israeli blitz to destroy the country's nuclear program and its military capabilities. After knocking out much of Iran's air defense system, Israel says its warplanes have free rein over the city's skies. U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday told Tehran's roughly 10 million residents to evacuate 'immediately.' Thousands have fled, spending hours in gridlock as they head toward the suburbs, the Caspian Sea, or even Armenia or Turkey. But others — those elderly and infirm — are stuck in high-rise apartment buildings. Their relatives fret: what to do? Israeli strikes on Iran have killed at least 585 people and wounded over 1,300, a human rights group says. Local media, themselves targets of bombardment, have stopped reporting on the attacks, leaving Iranians in the dark. There are few visible signs of state authority: Police appear largely undercover, air raid sirens are unreliable, and there's scant information on what to do in case of attack. Shirin, 49, who lives in the southern part of Tehran, said every call or text to friends and family in recent days has felt like it could be the last. 'We don't know if tomorrow we will be alive,' she said. Many Iranians feel conflicted. Some support Israel's targeting of Iranian political and military officials they see as repressive. Others staunchly defend the Islamic Republic and retaliatory strikes on Israel. Then, there are those who oppose Iran's rulers — but still don't want to see their country bombed. To stay, or to go? The Associated Press interviewed five people in Iran and one Iranian American in the U.S. over the phone. All spoke either on the condition of anonymity or only allowed their first names to be used, for fear of retribution from the state against them or their families. Most of the calls ended abruptly and within minutes, cutting off conversations as people grew nervous — or because the connection dropped. Iran's government has acknowledged disrupting internet access. It says it's to protect the country, though that has blocked average Iranians from getting information from the outside world. Iranians in the diaspora wait anxiously for news from relatives. One, an Iranian American human rights researcher in the U.S., said he last heard from relatives when some were trying to flee Tehran earlier in the week. He believes that lack of gas and traffic prevented them from leaving. The most heartbreaking interaction, he said, was when his older cousins — with whom he grew up in Iran — told him 'we don't know where to go. If we die, we die.' 'Their sense was just despair,' he said. Some families have made the decision to split up. A 23-year-old Afghan refugee who has lived in Iran for four years said he stayed behind in Tehran but sent his wife and newborn son out of the city after a strike Monday hit a nearby pharmacy. 'It was a very bad shock for them,' he said. Some, like Shirin, said fleeing was not an option. The apartment buildings in Tehran are towering and dense. Her father has Alzheimer's and needs an ambulance to move. Her mother's severe arthritis would make even a short trip extremely painful. Still, hoping escape might be possible, she spent the last several days trying to gather their medications. Her brother waited at a gas station until 3 a.m., only to be turned away when the fuel ran out. As of Monday, gas was being rationed to under 20 liters (5 gallons) per driver at stations across Iran after an Israeli strike set fire to the world's largest gas field. Some people, like Arshia, said they are just tired. 'I don't want to go in traffic for 40 hours, 30 hours, 20 hours, just to get to somewhere that might get bombed eventually,' he said. The 22-year-old has been staying in the house with his parents since the initial Israeli strike. He said his once-lively neighborhood of Saadat Abad in northwestern Tehran is now a ghost town. Schools are closed. Very few people even step outside to walk their dogs. Most local stores have run out of drinking water and cooking oil. Others closed. Still, Arshia said the prospect of finding a new place is too daunting. 'We don't have the resources to leave at the moment,' he said. Residents are on their own No air raid sirens went off as Israeli strikes began pounding Tehran before dawn Friday. For many, it was an early sign civilians would have to go it alone. During the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, Tehran was a low-slung city, many homes had basements to shelter in, and there were air raid drills and sirens. Now the capital is packed with close-built high-rise apartments without shelters. 'It's a kind of failing of the past that they didn't build shelters,' said a 29-year-old Tehran resident who left the city Monday. 'Even though we've been under the shadow of a war, as long as I can remember.' Her friend's boyfriend was killed while going to the store. 'You don't really expect your boyfriend — or your anyone, really — to leave the house and never return when they just went out for a routine normal shopping trip,' she said. Those who choose to relocate do so without help from the government. The state has said it is opening mosques, schools and metro stations for use as shelters. Some are closed, others overcrowded. Hundreds crammed into one Tehran metro station Friday night. Small family groups lay on the floor. One student, a refugee from another country, said she spent 12 hours in the station with her relatives. 'Everyone there was panicking because of the situation,' she said. 'Everyone doesn't know what will happen next, if there is war in the future and what they should do. People think nowhere is safe for them.' Soon after leaving the station, she saw that Israel had warned a swath of Tehran to evacuate. 'For immigrant communities, this is so hard to live in this kind of situation,' she said, explaining she feels like she has nowhere to escape to — especially not her home country, which she asked not be identified. Fear of Iran mingles with fear of Israel For Shirin, the hostilities are bittersweet. Despite being against the theocracy and its treatment of women, the idea that Israel may determine the future does not sit well with her. 'As much as we want the end of this regime, we didn't want it to come at the hands of a foreign government,' she said. 'We would have preferred that if there were to be a change, it would be the result of a people's movement in Iran.' Meanwhile, the 29-year-old who left Tehran had an even more basic message for those outside Iran: 'I just want people to remember that whatever is happening here, it's not routine business for us. People's lives here — people's livelihoods — feel as important to them as they feel to anyone in any other place. How would you feel if your city or your country was under bombardment by another country, and people were dying left and right?' 'We are kind of like, this can't be happening. This can't be my life.'
