Smoke rises from the site of a strike in Tehran on April 1, 2026, more than a month after the war launched by the United States and Israel began. (Credit: AFP)
Since the start of the war, Zoya* has watched the unsettling movement of the sky from her window, which is taped with adhesive strips to prevent the glass from shattering in the event of a nearby explosion. The thirty-something, who works in the judicial sector in Tehran, says she feels “helpless, like a spectator,” and believes the Iranian people are “officially being held hostage” — by a regime radicalized in its violence on one side, and by sustained American and Israeli strikes on the other.The war, which broke out on Feb. 28, came in the wake of shock among many Iranians after what has been described as the most severe crackdown in the history of the Islamic Republic. The repression, aimed at dismantling the social movement of Dey — spanning December and January in the Persian calendar — reportedly killed 18,751 people, including...
Since the start of the war, Zoya* has watched the unsettling movement of the sky from her window, which is taped with adhesive strips to prevent the glass from shattering in the event of a nearby explosion. The thirty-something, who works in the judicial sector in Tehran, says she feels “helpless, like a spectator,” and believes the Iranian people are “officially being held hostage” — by a regime radicalized in its violence on one side, and by sustained American and Israeli strikes on the other.The war, which broke out on Feb. 28, came in the wake of shock among many Iranians after what has been described as the most severe crackdown in the history of the Islamic Republic. The repression, aimed at dismantling the social movement of Dey — spanning December and January in the Persian calendar — reportedly killed 18,751...
