Tehran: “We’re all afraid of the nuclear attack”: a journalist’s desperate plea for help in the midst of the war between Israel and Iran
There was panic and confusion in Iran’s capital city of Tehran as Israel warned hundreds of thousands of civilians to evacuate ahead of more potential strikes as the broadening conflict between the two countries spilled into its fifth day.
Iran launched hundreds of drones and missiles towards Israel in response to their previous attacks, which have sent civilians throughout the occupied West Bank and Israel scrambling for cover. According to Israel’s prime minister’s office at least 24 civilians have died and hundreds of others have been wounded because of the destruction caused by several projectiles.
Zahra, an unemployed fashion designer in Tehran, told NPR she was trying to get out of the city to head to her hometown in western Iran but all the roads were blocked. She asked that only her first name be used because she feared government reprisal for speaking to the media.
We don’t know what to do. What should we do with our lives? We don’t have the internet. She says she took more than 18 hours to send the voice notes due to the lack of signal.
“Each person is only thinking about how they can save their own lives or the lives of their loved ones,” she said. “Everyone is just thinking about how to avoid these missiles.”
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On Tuesday, he went a step further, suggesting in a post that the U.S. knew the location of Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. “We know exactly where the so-called ‘Supreme Leader’ is hiding. He’s a easy target, but is safe so we are not going to take him out.
Netanyahu said at a news conference on Monday evening that Israel had set back Iran’s nuclear program by a long time. When asked if Israel plans to keep fighting until the Iranian government falls, Netanyahu said the main goal is to dismantle Iran’s nuclear capabilities — but also added that the “regime is very weak.”
Those strikes have also killed more than 200 civilians, including at least 20 children, according to the Iranian government. Iran believes that its nuclear program is peaceful.
Dena, a 48-year-old resident of Tehran – who also asked to be identified only by her first name for fear of government reprisal – says the government has given civilians no information on how to protect themselves.
“They don’t give us any practical tips. No information as to which locations we should avoid and which ones are safe to go. She says they don’t talk about it. “They are only applauding and celebrating shooting missiles at Israel.”
Israel and Iran have traded direct fire several times – most recently in October of last year – since the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel in 2023 sparked the current war in Gaza. But this new round has lasted longer and been more destructive and deadly for both sides.
“Anything that we’re watching is not what we were expecting,” said the president of the Foreign Policy Research Institute. He said Israel has gained control of much of Iran’s airspace and taken out its missile capabilities faster than many experts thought possible.
“But if they don’t get certain nuclear facilities, and Iran has the capability at the end of this thing to rapidly build a nuclear weapon, I will have judged this as a failure on the Israeli side,” said Stein.
That intervention could prove vital to Israel’s war aims: only the U.S. military has the 30,000-pound bunker-busting bombs that could possibly penetrate the defenses of Iran’s Fordow nuclear site, which is build into the side of a mountain, and it is also only the U.S. that possesses the aircraft powerful enough to deliver them.
The facilities – and the centrifuges they contain – can be used to enrich uranium to a purity that could be used either in a nuclear reactor to generate electricity or to build an atomic weapon, experts say.
Speaking to the BBC on Monday, the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Director, General Rafael Grossi, said it was likely that all of the 15,000 centrifuges at Natanz, Iran’s largest such facility, had been severely damaged by Israeli airstrikes. He said there was “very limited, if any, damage” visible at the underground Fordo enrichment plant.
Fordo, “is deeply buried,” says Daniel Shapiro, former U.S. ambassador to Israel and distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council, a non-partisan think thank in Washington, D.C. “[Only] the United States has the kind of bunker busting capabilities that can actually destroy that facility. I don’t rule out that Israel has something new up its sleeve.
“I don’t think regime change is the objective of this Israeli campaign,” says Shapiro, who served as ambassador to Israel during the Obama presidency. I don’t believe it’s possible to do it with this kind of military campaign.
Miller says Israel’s strategy is likely going to be “mowing the grass” and setting back Iran’s nuclear program with an iterative process.
I’ve had it, Trump said, when he demanded an “unconditional surrender” from Iran. Okay, I’ve had it. I give up. No more. Then we go blow up all the, you know, all the nuclear stuff that’s all over the place there.”
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Although Israel operates sophisticated U.S.-made warplanes, such as the F-35 fighter, it does not possess the enormous 30,000 pound bunker-busting bombs and the B-2 stealth bombers needed to deliver them – tools only the U.S. possesses.
Whether or not Washington will do that is still a question. Trump was asked at the G7 summit in Canada what it would take for the U.S. to become militarily involved, to which he responded simply: “I don’t want to talk about that.”
The program would be put on hold for a few weeks to a few months. Ali Vaez, director of the International Crisis Group’s Iran Project, says that an attack from the U.S. would take a couple of years.
He warns that the door to diplomacy will be shut if the U.S. intervenes. While trying to reconstitute its nuclear program, Iran would probably hunker down.
Israel chose to carry out the attack a few days ago after it was proven that Iran intended to produce a nuclear weapon.
Israel’s president says he would welcome international support in the war against Iran’s nuclear program, which Israel says was on the verge of building atomic weapons.
The president – who holds a largely ceremonial role in Israel – spoke to NPR in his official residence in Jerusalem as President Trump was still weighing whether to intervene, potentially authorizing B-2 bombers with bunker busting bombs to take out Iran’s most heavily fortified nuclear sites – weapons which Israel does not possess.
“There’s a bigger picture here that the world and the American people should understand,” he said, speaking just hours before Iran fired another missile barrage at Israel, which it has done repeatedly since Israel began attacking Iran last Friday.
“We have to stop this empire of evil – No more! – and tell them, get the goddamn nukes out of your hands. The rogue state should be avoided when behaving in a decent way. You are all around the world. “It’s impossible,” he said.
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Iran has insisted its enrichment program is only for civilian purposes, though experts – including the UN nuclear watchdog, the IAEA – say it has enriched uranium to levels where it could be poised to break out and produce several warheads.
A person familiar with the matter told NPR on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject that Israeli officials aren’t asking the U.S. to join the war but that they would be happy for the US to actively participate, and believe the U.S. will in fact step in militarily.
Herzog said that the war could cause Iran’s regime to fall so much that it could change the face of the region and lead to an end to the war in Gaza.
However, some regional security analysts warn that a U.S intervention could widen the conflict and provoke Iranian strikes on U.S. military bases in the Gulf, as well as oil infrastructure in the Gulf, which could send shockwaves through world markets.