The NPR news server contacted several Iranians by phone, who describe the panic of the population and the frightened children who ran out of the classrooms after the airstrikes on Tehran. The Iranian government said that one of the missiles hit a girls’ elementary school in the city of Minab in the southern Iranian province of Hormozgan, where at least 53 female students were killed, according to the new balance sheet.
“They hit a lot of targets around me, we heard fighter jets and rockets exploding,” one of the residents of the western part of Tehran told the NPR server, whom journalists managed to call before telephone connections were cut in Iran. On condition that her name not be published because she is afraid of arrest, the woman added that the Iranian government did not warn the residents about the potential attack.
Ali, a businessman from Tehran, said in a text message that he was sitting in an office with many employees when they heard two explosions and fighter jets flying in the sky. The employees ran out screaming, added Ali, who, like several other residents of Tehran who spoke to the NYT, did not wish to give their full names out of concern for their safety.
Hamídréza Zand, who lives in Tehran’s leafy, upscale Mirdamad neighborhood, described seeing at least ten fighter jets fly overhead as locals ran into the streets and some drivers exited their cars on traffic-clogged streets with sirens blaring.
“I rushed to the school to pick up my daughter from high school. The girls were hiding under the stairs and crying,” said another resident of Tehran, who was contacted by the NYT reporter via the social network Clubhouse. “The director didn’t know what happened – everyone was terribly scared,” he added.
Golšan Fasíová, who lives in the northern part of Tehran, described to the NYT how she saw the second wave of warplanes arrive. “I was standing on the roof, like other people, we were all looking at the sky. We could hear some women screaming. On the street, neighbors were running to their cars. We felt like we were in a movie,” she added.
American President Donald Trump, announcing that a “major military operation” had begun, called on the Iranians to rise up. “When we’re done, overthrow your government. It will be yours. This may be your only chance for generations,” he claimed.
Belief in the fall of the regime
Roxana from Tehran, who joined the anti-government protests, told NPR that she and other participants in the resistance against the Iranian regime are less afraid now than they were during the demonstrations. “We hope that this time the regime will fall. We have stocked up on food and will just wait,” she added.
For some Iranians, however, Trump’s call is laughable, the NYT wrote. “The only thing we are thinking about now is getting to safety,” lawyer Lalí, mother of two, told the newspaper. “We don’t even think about protests,” she added.
According to experts, it is difficult to estimate how much support the Iranian regime or its opponents have. Moreover, there is no obvious successor to the Islamic government in the country; opposition groups are fragmented and it is assumed that they do not have a large base of supporters in the country, the NPR server added.
