As Iranians take shelter or flee, some also hope for the end of a repressive regime

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It was 3 a.m. when a deafening noise shattered the silence of homes in the affluent Saadat Abad district in northern Tehran earlier this month. Windows shook. Children woke up crying. Panicked residents ran into the street.

Abideh, a mother of two young children, thought their building was collapsing. Everyone was screaming, she said. Explosions kept going off. She ran to the rooftop and saw a nearby building on fire.

That was the night of Israel’s first attack on the Iranian capital.

With her ten-year-old son and six-year-old daughter, Abideh was forced to leave her home and seek shelter with relatives on the outskirts of the city.

“We’re basically homeless now. We don’t even know where we’ll be tomorrow,” Abideh told The Globe and Mail by phone last week. The Globe is using only first names for the Iranians who were interviewed to protect their security at a time of growing unrest.

As Israeli air strikes continue to pound the city of almost 10 million, many residents of Tehran have chosen to flee. Long lines at gas stations, skyrocketing food prices, and severe medicine shortages have only worsened the anxiety.

Abideh says that the sounds of the attack on her neighbourhood are still alive in her mind. “My hands shake, my heart races. The fear hasn’t left me,” she said. “Every night, after my kids fall asleep, I sit and think about the future … a future with no sense of safety.”

But inside basements, parking garages and other places where people are looking for safety, it’s not just fear that echoes, but also voices rooted in decades of pain.

Abideh said that in the shelter where she and her family have been staying, there are women praying for the death of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, whose regime has executed their sons.

“Some said maybe this war would finally bring down the government,” Abideh said.

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She hears chants ringing out in the streets, even in the dead of night: “Death to the dictator!” “An end to 46 years of tyranny!”

Despite their overwhelming fear, Abideh said people are still clinging to hope: “Hope for change. Hope that maybe all this pain will finally wake people up.”

The main cause of the unrest and the current atmosphere of repression, she said, is the Islamic Republic regime, which has spent taxpayers’ money on its proxy forces, pushed the country into isolation and ultimately paved the way for a foreign attack.

“The Iranian people do not want war with anyone; rather, they seek peace with all nations — including Israel,” she said.

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But fear among the Iranian population is not confined to Tehran. Reza, a 23-year-old international relations student in Isfahan, the country’s second-largest metropolitan area, described a city hollowed out by fear, with deserted streets and shuttered stores. “It’s like the city has died. Everyone’s afraid. No one knows what’s going to happen tomorrow.”

For Reza, life has turned into a sleepless nightmare. “Every moment, I’m waiting for a missile to hit. I can’t sleep from the stress,” he told The Globe last week.

What haunts him even more is the uncertainty. “We don’t even know what’s hidden in our neighbourhoods. Maybe that grey wall near my house is hiding a drone factory. Who knows?”

Like Abideh, Reza also speaks of an end — not just to war, but to dictatorship. “People hate this regime. Without internal co-operation, Israel couldn’t have struck so precisely.”

He says that now, more than ever, there’s a strange, cautious hope among Iranians. “There are rumours everywhere. That Khamenei is dead. That tomorrow the revolution begins. Even if they’re not true, just the fact these rumours spread shows how desperately people want this regime gone.”

In streets that just days ago were full of life, silence now dominates. Storefronts are dark. Sirens wail sporadically. Mothers whisper prayers in the shadows.

“Today the roads are empty,” Reza said. “Shops are closed. People are anxious. Worried about a future they can’t see – and don’t know will ever come.”