Sleep has become a luxury in Tehran. For the past 10 days, residents have been jolted awake by explosions that seem to arrive with the regularity of a cruel clock. “Every few hours,” one woman described them, as if the city itself had become a metronome of destruction. The Israeli and US attacks have transformed the Iranian capital into a place where darkness is both literal and metaphorical, where power cuts leave people fumbling in blackness, unsure whether the next boom will be blocks away or on their own street.
A man in his 30s from Tehran told BBC Persian what that darkness felt like: “I was in total darkness last night. The electricity went out and I had no idea what was happening.” He went on to describe cracks spreading across his walls like veins, the physical toll of living through bombardment etched into the very structure of his home. “Sleeping has become the hardest thing for me,” he said, and you can almost hear the exhaustion in those words.
When Routine Disappears
What strikes most about these accounts isn’t just the fear or the noise. It’s the collapse of everything normal. One resident explained how every bit of routine has vanished, replaced either by inability to perform daily tasks or by complete lack of motivation. How do you make breakfast when you don’t know if the building will still be standing in an hour?
The strikes have been relentless since February 28, when Israel and the US launched their initial joint attack. Iran responded with missile and drone strikes of its own, and now the cycle continues to escalate. Another resident described missiles getting closer and closer each day, a terrifying progression that suggests nowhere is truly safe. He also mentioned being shot in the eye during anti-government protests just weeks earlier, adding another layer to the tragedy: Iranian civilians are caught in crossfire between external and internal conflict.
A City Split on Survival
What’s interesting is how Iranians are responding to this crisis isn’t uniform. Some see the strikes as potentially liberating, a possible end to decades of governance they despise. A woman in her 50s, a restaurateur in Karaj, felt the “shadow of death over her head” when a strike hit nearby, yet she said she’d tolerate the situation as long as the regime falls. “Even if we are killed, it honestly does not matter compared to the lives that have already been lost in the hope of victory,” she declared.
Others aren’t so philosophical about it. A younger resident from Karaj simply said he was tired, that the war felt overwhelming, and that some scenarios for Iran’s future were genuinely frightening. You can’t blame him. According to reports from Human Rights Activists in Iran, 1,761 people have been killed since this escalation began, including at least 1,245 civilians and 194 children.
The strange lights in the sky don’t make it poetic. The blue and red glows illuminating Tehran’s night aren’t beautiful when they’re tied to weapons and death. They’re the color of fear made visible.
The Information Blackout
Internet connectivity in Iran has been almost entirely shut down, making it difficult to know the full scope of what’s happening. Journalists face restricted access, which means the BBC and other news outlets can’t independently verify everything being reported. This information vacuum is its own kind of darkness, leaving the world partially blind to the human reality of what’s unfolding in Tehran and Karaj.
What we do know comes from brave residents willing to speak to foreign media despite the dangers. They’re describing a city under siege, not by a traditional military occupation but by air strikes, power failures, and the psychological toll of wondering when the next explosion will come.
The question now is what comes next. Will this continue for weeks? Will Iran retaliate again? Will the cycle spiral further into something even worse? The residents of Tehran don’t have answers, only the hope that whenever this ends, something changes fundamentally in how their country is governed. For now, they’re left counting explosions instead of sheep, waiting for dawn in more ways than one.
