Caught between Israeli airstrikes and regime repression, the war divided Iranians on whether it would bring about chaos or change

The glass in Mahsa Akbari’s apartment in Saadat Abad district in northern Tehran still crunches underfoot days after the bombing. Her bedroom wall is half-collapsed, her belongings buried under rubble. 

The damage, although severe, does not unsettle her as much as “the sense of calm that has settled deep inside,” she told The New Arab.

“Maybe this is the only way out. We’ve been trapped for so long under this regime.”

As Israeli and American missiles hit deep into Iranian territory and the Islamic Republic retaliated with volleys of its own, some Iranians see a long-awaited reckoning as external forces succeed where years of protest have failed.

While others see a nation under siege, unjustly punished by foreign powers and pushed toward chaos; but what unites both sides is a sense that the country has entered a point of no return.

Mahsa, 39, an architect now sheltering in a friend’s home in Qazvin, about 150 kilometres from Tehran, hopes that a fundamental change “could emerge from this war,” even if it comes at “a high cost.”

But not everyone shares her sense of hope. In a former school turned shelter in Nowshahr, about 180 kilometres from Tehran, an elderly man named Hashem Sabori sat with his head in his hands, anger rising in his voice.

“Those in support of what’s happening say Israel only targeted military sites,” he said. “Then why did my neighbour in Tehranpars die? Why can’t my daughter sleep from fear? This war is targeting us… not just the regime.”

Beside him, a younger man named Saman Vahedi, now sharing the same shelter, echoed his frustration but redirected the blame.

“If he were younger, I’d ask him, who brought this on us?” he told The New Arab. “Did we, the people, ask for nuclear bombs? Were we the ones threatening Israel? It’s the Islamic Republic that dragged us into this.”

Both sides blamed 

Over the past 10 days, Israeli strikes have killed at least 430 people and wounded more than 3,000 in Iran, according to figures from the Iranian Health Ministry. In Israel, Iranian missile attacks have left 24 people dead and several hundred injured.

Early Sunday, the United States joined the conflict with a sweeping aerial assault on three of Iran’s most critical nuclear facilities: Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan. The operation, code-named Midnight Hammer, involved more than 125 aircraft, including B-2 bombers armed with bunker-busting munitions and Tomahawk missiles launched from submarines in the Persian Gulf.

Iran retaliated within hours, firing two waves of 27 missiles each toward Israel. Targets included Ben Gurion International Airport near Tel Aviv, military research facilities, and key command centres. 

Late Monday, Iran launched a missile strike on Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, targeting US forces just hours before a Trump-brokered ceasefire was set to begin. The agreement, announced via Truth Social, called for Iran to halt attacks immediately, with Israel expected to follow six hours later. The truce was intended to mark the end of what Trump dubbed the "12-Day War."

But by early Tuesday, Israel reported new missile launches from Iran over the north and responded with strikes on Tehran, killing at least nine. Iran denied launching missiles after the ceasefire was announced. Speaking before departing for a NATO summit, Trump blamed both sides for breaking the deal and urged Israeli pilots to stand down, expressing frustration over the renewed escalation.

Old traumas resurface 

In Iran, daily life has been further upended. Dozens of residents of Tehran and other cities, The New Arab spoke to, describe sleepless nights, a steady drumbeat of sirens and airstrikes, and an atmosphere increasingly defined by fear and distrust.

Zahra Ghodsi, a journalist based in Tehran, believes that despite its faults, the regime remains more trustworthy than foreign powers like Israel and the US.

“Anyone who supports Netanyahu or Trump is a traitor. They would sell this country. Because if the Islamic Republic falls, those powers will carve up Iran,” she told The New Arab.

She noted the widespread demonstrations that had broken out across Iran following the Israeli and US strikes, with tens of thousands rallying in cities like Tehran, Tabriz, and Shiraz to condemn the assaults on Iranian soil and nuclear infrastructure.

Zahra Moradi, a literature student in Isfahan, supported this view, arguing that the Iranian people have resisted for years to indigenize nuclear technology. 

“Nuclear energy represents Iran's scientific independence, and the nation would never yield to coercion,” Zahra said, asserting that the international community must recognise that such blatant aggression would only serve to strengthen the unity of the Iranian people.

Farhad Zamani, a former professor of political science, disagreed with Zahra’s view, stating that the war had exposed, rather than healed, long-standing fractures within Iranian society. 

For years, he explained, many Iranians had distinguished their homeland and the regime that governs it. But the current conflict had “forced that divide into public view, raising questions once debated only in activist circles.”

Farhad explained, “Domestic suffering runs so deep that it overshadows the foreign threat. For years, many Iranians have drawn a clear distinction between their homeland and the regime that governs it. For many, love for Iran as a land of ancient history, rich culture, and honourable people has never meant support for the current political system.

"This distinction is pervasive among younger generations, the middle class, and the educated, those who have long endured political repression, economic hardship, systemic corruption, and unfulfilled promises, and who now feel alienated from the ruling establishment.”

Farzaneh Rostami, 35, a dental clinic receptionist near Tehran’s Vali-Asr Square, described her reaction when she heard that Amir Ali Hajizadeh, the former head of the IRGC’s Aerospace Force, had been killed in an airstrike.

“For the first time,” she said, “it felt like someone had finally paid a price. This man was responsible for hundreds of deaths. Why should I mourn him?”

Farzaneh shares with The New Arab ​​​​​​that she had lost a close friend who was aboard the Ukrainian passenger plane that was shot down in 2020, an incident for which Hajizadeh later took responsibility. Holding back tears, she added that while this may only be a fleeting moment of peace, “it still feels like justice.”

Sam Zakeri, 33, works at a small café in Istanbul that has become a hub for Iranian exiles. A former student activist during the 2022 anti-government uprising, he reflected on the war’s impact with quiet intensity.

“We Iranians have lived in a silent civil war for years,” he said. “Now there’s an external enemy, too. But the real choice isn’t between Israel and the Islamic Republic — it’s between death and change.”

Concerns for the diaspora

Sam, like many others in the diaspora, remains deeply concerned about those back home. 

“What kind of government shuts down the internet for its own people during wartime?” he asked. “I haven’t been able to reach my family since yesterday. And now Toomaj Salehi, the rapper who was just released, has been arrested again. They’re using this war to settle scores.”

Kian Ahmadi, a sociologist who has studied authoritarian resilience, said the regime’s response to external threats is likely to be increased repression rather than retreat.

“When regimes feel existentially threatened, they often intensify their grip on power,” he said. “These attacks might accelerate long-term collapse, but in the short term, we are likely to see a more closed political environment, harsher crackdowns, and the possibility of a prolonged war. And in all of this, ordinary people are the ones crushed, like grains caught between two millstones.”

While some Iranians, particularly in the diaspora and among segments of the opposition, view the war as an opening for change, Kian said many others are primarily concerned with the immediate dangers of conflict.

“There is a growing instability rooted in contradiction,” he said. “Nationalism is being invoked both to defend the state and to reject it. For many, the depth of domestic suffering now outweighs the fear of a foreign threat.”

*All last names in this article are pseudonyms used to protect the individuals’ identities for security reasons

Saeedeh Fathi is a journalist with 22 years of experience in Iran and was the country’s first woman to serve as editor-in-chief of a sports magazine. In 2022, during the Woman, Life, Freedom movement, she was arrested and spent two months under interrogation at Evin Prison

This article is published in collaboration with Egab