A country coming apart: US-Israel war pounds Iranian cities and life

By Wednesday morning, five days into the US-Israeli strikes, Iran had stopped feeling like a country at war and started feeling like a country coming apart.

The bombardment that began over Tehran on Saturday has spread, city by city, into a sustained assault on civilian infrastructure, military installations, and the ordinary routines that hold daily life together.

Hospitals are overwhelmed.

The internet is nearly gone.

And across Tehran and the major cities, the question that residents are now asking is not when this ends but whether they will still be here when it does.

A city under pressure

From the first hours of Wednesday, explosions rolled across different districts of Tehran.

Black smoke rose above residential buildings and public facilities. Residents sheltered inside or attempted to flee, moving through streets covered in shattered glass and rubble, past burning cars that blocked traffic at almost every intersection.

Mohammad Reza, 42, from the Souhanak neighbourhood, was home with his wife and children when the first explosion hit.

"The ground shook violently under our feet and the walls of the house trembled. The windows shattered in every direction. The air filled with dust and ash, and the sound of continuous explosions made my heart stop for a moment," Reza described.

When they reached the street, he said, the roads were full of overturned vehicles and people running without direction. "Some were dragging the injured, others screaming for help. Every moment was more dangerous than the last, and the sound of the next explosion was getting closer, as if death was following us," he said.

Civil defence teams arrived late because of the congestion. Some children were trapped under debris, still screaming. Rescue workers moved through smoke that cut visibility to almost nothing and kept going.

Initial reports indicated hundreds of casualties on Wednesday, including women, children, and the elderly, with thousands more wounded. Emergency wards filled beyond capacity. Some patients were treated on floors and in corridors. Several hospitals sustained direct damage from nearby blasts, forcing medical staff to work without adequate supplies or protection.

In central Tehran, partial collapses in the wings of at least one major hospital killed patients and staff. In Karaj, fires that broke out after fuel tanks exploded spread to adjoining residential complexes. Fire crews could not get close enough to contain the flames as the bombardment continued.

Beyond the capital

US-Israel's war was not limited to within Tehran's boundaries. Strikes hit markets and residential areas in Isfahan, Khuzestan, and Bushehr, producing casualties and widespread infrastructure damage including electricity, water, and communications outages that made it difficult for emergency teams to reach the wounded.

Sara Karimi, 31, from Isfahan, said the industrial area near her building caught fire after the strikes.

"We had to leave the house immediately. I felt suffocated by the smoke and terrified of the flames," she said.

Karimi described roads blocked by damaged vehicles, her family walking long distances while neighbours helped carry children and elderly residents out. At the hospital, she said, the wards filled almost immediately with people suffering severe burns and serious wounds.

"The medical staff were working without stopping. There was enormous chaos, but they did everything they could," she recalled.

In Tabriz, Ali Moradi, 35, was on his way to work when an explosion struck near his street.

"I saw part of a residential building collapse completely in front of my eyes. I did not know if I would get out alive," he said.

Moradi described local volunteers bringing basic tools to help rescue teams reach those trapped, noting, "What saved us was collective action. We exchanged information about the safer areas and helped each other reach shelters and hospitals."

Reza Nouri, 48, from Qom, said the explosions blew open the doors of his home.

"We went out toward the street quickly without understanding the dangers around us. Children were crying and women were screaming. Neighbours opened their homes to the displaced and volunteers distributed food and water," said Nouri.

Mashhad braces

In Mashhad, Iran's holiest city and the site of the Imam Reza shrine, residents were absorbing the bombardment while simultaneously preparing for what is expected to be one of the most significant public gatherings in the country's recent history: the funeral of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. The city that will bury him is already living under the same war that killed him.

Fatima Hosseini, 29, from Mashhad, was cooking in her kitchen when the explosion hit her neighbourhood.

"Everything shook violently and the dishes and glass fell from the shelves. The house filled with dust. Children ran in every direction looking for their families. I felt completely helpless to protect my family from a terror I had never imagined," she said.

Hosseini described climbing over debris to reach the street, the smoke and heat making it hard to breathe, neighbours carrying elderly residents out on their shoulders. In the street, some undamaged homes had opened their doors to the displaced.

"People gathered in gardens and open spaces to get away from buildings at risk of collapse," she said.

Several neighbourhoods across Tehran and other cities experienced near-total internet and communications outages, now in their fifth consecutive day. Families who lost contact with relatives searched for news through neighbours and volunteers coordinating relief through whatever means were still available. Many residents were forced to bury relatives in nearby open spaces because emergency teams could not transport bodies in time.

In Karaj, Nasrin Mohajeri, 27, said an explosion near her home shook the ground so violently that everything seemed to collapse at once.

"We tried to get out of the building but the smoke and heat made it hard to breathe," Mohajeri said.

Neighbours carried children and elderly residents to safety, saying, "Ambulances arrived late because of the congested roads, but local volunteers were already treating the wounded and distributing water and food to the displaced. It was a scene where terror and solidarity were completely mixed together."

Children who witnessed explosions directly are showing signs of acute trauma. Adults describe living in a state of permanent dread, startled by sirens. And yet the civilian networks have not collapsed.

Across Tehran and the major cities, volunteer groups continued to distribute food, evacuate the wounded, and search the rubble, filling a void that the state, under bombardment and institutional strain, can no longer fill alone.

This story was published in collaboration with Egab.