\u201cMy heart sank,\u201d Shams told The Sunday Times over the phone. \u201cAt first, I was in shock. I couldn\u2019t believe it. We had waited for this day for months.\u201d<\/p>\n
The wedding was off. <\/p>\n
Before she left home, she took a photo of her dress and her bouquet laid out on her sofa. She had to leave them behind.<\/p>\n
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Rahna Shams\u2019s wedding dress lies unused at her home<\/p>\n
Now she is living crammed into a cottage in the mountains north of Tehran with 14 of her relatives \u2014 her dreams of dancing in her new white dress delayed. Like everyone else in Iran<\/a>, she has no idea what comes next.<\/p>\n Nine days after Israel launched Operation Rising Lion<\/a>, a military campaign that the IDF claims is aimed at crippling Iran\u2019s ability to create a nuclear bomb, civilians in the country are living a terrifying new reality. Each day they wait to find out whether Trump has decided to join strikes against Iran\u2019s nuclear sites, or whether Israel and the US will attempt to overthrow the regime \u2014 perhaps to install a puppet in the form of Reza Pahlavi, the last Shah\u2019s son, who lives in the US.<\/p>\n One certainty is that for middle-class Iranians in Tehran, the life that was theirs a few weeks ago \u2014 under pressure from sanctions and regime corruption, but a life that could also be comfortable \u2014 is on hold indefinitely. Many have followed Trump\u2019s directive and fled to holiday homes or relatives in the countryside. Although it\u2019s not known exactly now many have left Tehran, roads out of the city were jammed with traffic last week. <\/p>\n Others have stayed put. Mina Akbari, a 45-year-old journalist and documentary film-maker, was forced to cancel her father\u2019s memorial service when the bombardment started. He had died just days before the war began.<\/p>\n The Iranian capital has been under heavy bombardment from Israeli forces<\/p>\n She now spends her days walking around the empty streets of Tehran, feeding the stray cats. \u201cThis is the only thing I can do during these bombings,\u201d Akbari told me by phone. The cars by the bomb sites, she said, were so destroyed they looked like chewed-up gum. \u201cYou\u2019re not allowed to stop. The streets are filled with checkpoints.\u201d<\/p>\n She had decided to stay, she said, because she remembered fleeing during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s. Until now, she had never been able to shake the horror of a foreign government forcing her to leave her home. \u201cThis is my home. It\u2019s like a piece of my body. This is my city. It\u2019s part of me,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Roxana, 30, a model and designer, sent me a photograph of her terrace in Tehran, where she used to drink illegally procured wine with her friends. \u201cNow it\u2019s empty,\u201d she told me, as she prepared to flee the city. \u201cNo more laughter.\u201d To cope with the stress, she told me she had started taking anti-anxiety pills.<\/p>\n Roxana\u2019s last photo of her home before she left<\/p>\n In the eyes of millions of Iranians, the regime increasingly resembles a failed state. It has been unable to provide basic services like electricity and clean drinking water for months, largely due to sanctions and economic collapse. <\/p>\n During the recent bombings, the government has offered no public alerts about specific incoming Israeli strikes, and instead focused on arresting photographers, journalists and anti-war activists. There is no official rescue effort for the elderly left behind, nor support for displaced civilians under bombardment.<\/p>\n Even before the Israeli<\/a> strikes, mosques in Iran were often almost empty. Now the government has designated them as emergency shelters. Despite this, many people do not consider them safe: they are not specially constructed to withstand blasts. <\/p>\n In the absence of the state, people have started caring for each other, opening their homes to strangers. On social media sites, people share free housing, medication, warm clothes and mobile phones with those in need. <\/p>\n Most people aren\u2019t going to work: only essential workers such as health personnel, security forces and those involved in food, fuel and medicine distribution. Others are working remotely. There is still food in the shops, but prices are rising. \u201cFruit vendors overcharge, supermarkets are running low. At the chain stores, shelves are empty \u2014 no oil, and many basics are missing,\u201d said Fatemeh, 35, an office manager.<\/p>\n Residents have been storing water<\/p>\n On Wednesday last week the regime cut internet access to much of the country, leaving Iranians in the dark about what is happening around them as their nation goes to war. Iranian leaders claim they did it to protect the country from Israeli cyberattacks. But it also seems intended to rob Iranian civilians of access to information from abroad, and to stop them from organising against the regime. <\/p>\n \u2022 Trump gives Iran \u2018two-week\u2019 reprieve as his inner circle quietly seeks an exit <\/b><\/a><\/p>\n Without the internet even the general evacuation notices that are issued don\u2019t come through. The news stops; particularly as the overwhelming majority of Iranians use Instagram or encrypted sites such as Telegram and WhatsApp to follow current events. Many also watch satellite television which, while technically illegal, is widespread: in Tehran, you can see the dishes on every block of flats. <\/p>\n Only a small proportion watch state-run media, with its daily stream of propaganda and diatribes against the US and Israel, as well as tributes to hardliners. Last week footage was shown of what was claimed to be an Iranian strike on Israel. In fact, it was a strike on Tehran by the Israel Defence Forces. <\/p>\n Just before the internet was cut on Wednesday, Sormeh, 41, an engineer, sent me a photograph of her yoga mat, with a deserted Tehran rising in the background. \u201cThey\u2019re nationalising the internet,\u201d she wrote to me. \u201cWe can\u2019t even know when the bombs will fall any more.\u201d As of Saturday afternoon, the internet appeared to be partially back online. <\/p>\n Sormeh celebrates her birthday on the third day of the conflict<\/p>\n Sormeh risks arrest by refusing to wear a headscarf in a country where it\u2019s required by law. She despises the regime, and took part in the Women, Life, Freedom protests that erupted in 2022 after the death of Mahsa Amini<\/a>, a young woman who was killed while in the custody of the \u201cmorality police\u201d.<\/p>\n Yet Sormeh still condemned Israel\u2019s attacks. For her, and for many others like her, the idea that the Iranian regime would be overthrown by a foreign power, and a new ruler potentially installed, is doomed to fail.<\/p>\n![\"Black](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/\/029b0d43-bb5c-416f-b141-db656bc738fd.gif\")
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