By Parisa Hafezi
DUBAI, March 3 (Reuters) – Terrified residents of Iran’s capital described it as a ghost town on Tuesday, its streets largely emptied by a U.S.-Israeli missile barrage apart from security checkpoints and Revolutionary Guards patrols that rove the city.
The airstrikes have killed hundreds of Iranians since Saturday while Israeli and U.S. leaders have voiced hopes they would trigger an uprising, but Reuters found no evidence one was imminent in phone conversations with people around the country.
“There are checkpoints on every street and alley,” said Fariba Gerami, 27, who works for a company in north Tehran where her husband runs a small coffee shop.
Electricity and water cuts since the bombardment began have further raised her fears, and at night she and her friends fear thieves will burgle their apartments, she said.
The family plans to leave Iran as soon as it is safe to do so, but they worry about security on the roads out, she added.
BUILDINGS AND CARS DESTROYED
Her account was backed up by those of two Iranian men arriving in Turkey through a border gate on Tuesday who described scenes of tension and fear in the capital.
“The kids were like screaming and crying,” said one Iranian man, who declined to give his name, adding that civilian structures being hit by the strikes instilled fear in the city’s residents.
The second man said the destruction was widespread. “We saw a lot of buildings destroyed, especially on the way leaving the country. There were a bunch of buildings, a bunch of cars and streets were destroyed. People are panicking to leave the country. They don’t know what to do,” he said.
STRIKE ON SCHOOL AND NEAR HOSPITAL FRIGHTENS RESIDENTS
For those unable to leave the capital, the anxiety is immense, with strikes on Monday hitting close to a Tehran hospital that was damaged and had to be evacuated.
Adding to fears of further civilian casualties is the example of the girls’ school in southern Iran that was bombed in the first hours of the war, with a death toll that authorities have put at 150. Reuters has not been able to verify that toll.
At the girls’ funeral on Tuesday, their small coffins draped with Iranian flags were passed from a truck across a large crowd, borne across a sea of upraised hands towards the grave site, video on state television showed.
“World, do you see? They are killing us. Hear our voice,” said Firuzeh Seraj, speaking through tears from Tehran.
“My 10-year-old daughter is on dialysis and now we are trapped. I’m afraid to take her to the hospital. What if they bomb it? Why are you bombing us?” she said.
Iran said its death toll from the attacks had reached 787, citing the Red Crescent.
It has responded to the U.S.-Israeli attack with a blitz of drone and missile attacks on countries around the region, striking at both military and civilian targets in Israel, Jordan and Gulf monarchies.
LACK OF SHELTERS, PEOPLE STOCKPILING FOOD
Anger at the catastrophe unfolding in Iran was directed at the country’s own leaders too.
News of Khamenei’s death on Saturday prompted spontaneous celebrations in parts of Tehran, though supporters of the Islamic Republic’s authorities also held mourning processions.
However, there has been no return to the major nationwide protests that convulsed Iran in early January, and which were put down with a spree of state violence in which thousands were killed.
A retired army officer in a northern Iranian city who gave only his first name, Hassan, blamed the late Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, whose nuclear policy set Iran at odds with the West and who was killed on Saturday.
“Khamenei is dead but the consequences of years of his stubbornness are still killing the Iranian people,” he said.
“Why so much hostility with the world? What have we gained from this nuclear programme except bombardment, isolation and misery? Why are we living under bombs?” he added.
In Urmia, a city near the borders of Turkey and Iraq, a woman who asked to be identified only as Shahla, said the previous night’s bombardment had been the heaviest yet.
“I was terrified. There are no shelters. No help. They are bombing everywhere. The internet cuts in and out. We are stocking up on food,” she said.
Like other Iranians Reuters reached, she said food and medicine were still available in the shops, but she was worried supplies would start to run low and people were buying up goods in case of a prolonged conflict.
One elderly woman in the Gulf coast city of Bushehr, home to Iran’s one nuclear power plant, said she feared she would never again see her children who lived overseas.
“My children call me but even the internet does not work properly. I am afraid, very afraid, that I may never see them again and that I could die in these bombings,” said the 80-year-old, who gave only her first name, Fatemeh.
(Reporting by Parisa Hafezi in Dubai; Additional reporting by Ismet Mikailogullari in Kapikoy, Turkey and Ali Kucukgocmen in Istanbul; Writing by Angus McDowall; Editing by Alison Williams)
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