Poetess Buried With Her Dreams, Child Crushed In Sleep: Faces Of Civilian Lives Lost In Israel's Bombing Of Tehran
New Delhi: Their lives had nothing to do with war. Still, they were taken by it in a matter of seconds. Said to be aimed at dismantling military and nuclear installations, Israeli air strikes on Iranian soil have killed hundreds in the past week. Away from the military maps and talking points, real lives have been reduced to rubble. In homes, cafes, dorm rooms and streets, the victims include students, artists, teachers and parents.
These are some of their stories.
Niloufar Ghalehvand was sipping coffee with her friend the night before her death. A 32-year-old Pilates instructor from Ozgol Street in northern Tehran, she dreamed of one day launching her own fitness channel. She never got the chance.
A missile, likely targeting a senior military official living nearby, hit her building in the early hours. Niloufar died with her parents – ordinary civilians with no ties to politics or war.
'She was full of dreams. Her birthday was just weeks away,' Al Jazeera quoted one of her friends as saying.
Parsa Mansour, a rising star in paddle tennis, was asleep when his window exploded. The 27-year-old athlete lived with his parents in Shahrara, a densely packed residential district in Tehran. His father survived, but Parsa did not.
He trained alone, without sponsors or a coach. He made it to the top with no support. That is who he was. Now, there is silence where there used to be laughter.
Parnia Abbasi, 23, was a poet who worked at the National Bank of Iran. She had just moved into a new apartment with her family. Her dream was to pursue a postgraduate degree. She loved writing about hope in dark times. One of her poems reads, 'I burn, I fade, I become a silent star, that turns into smoke in your sky…'
That smoke, her friend says, is all that remained after a missile levelled their apartment block on Sattarkhan Street. She was killed with her parents and 14-year-old brother.
Ehsan Bayrami, 35, a freelance photographer who covered sporting events, was killed while walking home from a work meeting. An explosion ripped through the Tajrish district, just meters from where he had passed minutes earlier.
He was warned by his friend that morning to stay alert, to which he had replied that 'they only bomb at night'.
It was noon.
Amin Ahmad, 30, was a taekwondo athlete. His father, a retired schoolteacher, had saved for decades to build their house in eastern Tehran. When the missile hit, Amin saw his father thrown out of the house, his face and ears badly burned.
He watched him die. The rest in the family escaped out from the window. But Ahmad could not.
The stories keep coming. An 8-year-old equestrian champion. A university professor grading papers in her living room. A graphic designer who once filmed for National Geographic.
The Iranian Ministry of Health says at least 639 people have died in the ongoing attacks, 263 of them civilians. Another 1,300 are wounded.
Iran has launched hundreds of missiles and drones at Israel in retaliation, killing more than 24 and injuring over 400. But for many Iranians, the pain is not in the numbers, it is in the empty chairs, the unanswered phones and the birthdays that will never come.
Some victims have names. Some remain unidentified. All of them had lives that never belonged to war.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Time of India
26 minutes ago
- Time of India
China Sides With Iran, Greenlights Hormuz BLOCKADE? Beijing's First Response As U.S. Seeks Help
/ Jun 23, 2025, 06:00PM IST United States' airstrike on the Iranian nuclear sites has triggered a massive global oil crisis scare. Tehran's parliament has decided to close the Strait of Hormuz, a critical global oil chokepoint. The strait accounts for 1/5th of the movement of oil containers across the world. According to reports, United States had urged China not to led the Ayatollah Khamenei-led regime to shut the strait. Will China heed to Trump's request after a bitter trade tariff war between the two superpowers?
Time of India
27 minutes ago
- Time of India
Did the US really wipe out Iran's nuclear sites? Reports say Trump may have been tricked by Tehran
Despite President Trump's declaration of a complete victory, the US airstrikes on Iran's nuclear facilities have yielded mixed results. While some sites sustained damage, particularly at Fordow, doubts remain about the extent of destruction to underground facilities. Concerns linger regarding Iran's potential relocation of enriched uranium, potentially hindering but not halting their nuclear ambitions. Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads Did the US really wipe out Iran's nuclear sites? Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads What do satellite images reveal about the damage? What do experts think about the attack? Has Iran secretly moved its highly enriched Uranium? Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads How does this impact Iran's nuclear ambitions? FAQs US President Donald Trump announced with confidence that US airstrikes had destroyed Iran's main nuclear sites and called it a complete victory. However, expert opinions and satellite images present a different Saturday night, Donald Trump dispatched seven B-2 stealth bombers from the United States to destroy Tehran's nuclear program by dropping massive bunker-busting bombs on three enrichment facilities in Fordow, Natanz, and underground facilities may have survived, and enriched uranium may have been moved without anyone knowing. The attack may have slowed down Iran's nuclear plans, but it did not stop them, as per reports by CNN and of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Dan Caine said Sunday that a US submarine used Tomahawk cruise missiles to strike an Isfahan location where a US official estimates that approximately 60% of Iran's stockpile of already-enriched nuclear material is kept Isfahan facility was not hit by massive "bunker-buster" bombs dropped by B-2 bombers, in contrast to the other two Iranian facilities targeted in the operation, as per a report by the US used 12 bunker busters to destroy Iran's facility at Fordow, another underground location that contained centrifuges needed to enrich uranium, the facility's evident survival has prompted doubts about whether Trump's declared objective was even to commercial satellite imagery, the U.S. attack on Iran's Fordow nuclear plant seriously damaged, if not completely destroyed, the deeply buried site and the uranium-enriching centrifuges it contained, but experts said on Sunday that there was no proof of it. However, it is unknown how much damage has been done because the facility has layers of Technologies' satellite imagery from Thursday and Friday revealed "unusual activity" at Fordow, including a lengthy line of cars waiting outside one of the facility's Lewis, a weapons expert and professor at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, has closely examined commercial satellite images of the strike sites and said the damage to the facility seems limited to aboveground structures.'They just punched through with these MOPs,' said David Albright, the head of the Institute for Science and International Security and a former U.N. nuclear inspector, in reference to the Massive Ordnance Penetrator bunker-busting bombs that the United States claimed it Eveleth, a satellite images specialist and associate researcher with the CNA Corporation, pointed out that it was impossible to confirm the destruction below ground. The hall that houses hundreds of centrifuges is "too deeply buried for us to evaluate the level of damage based on satellite imagery," he stated to Iran, prior to US attacks on its nuclear bases, the majority of its highly enriched uranium was smuggled to a hidden location. Iran claimed that it had moved its 400 kg stockpile, much of which was kept at Isfahan, and satellite photos showed convoys departing all three locations in recent days, as per a report by think that the majority of Fordow's 400 kg of 60%-enriched uranium was transferred prior to Operation Midnight Hammer, as per a report by The of 16 trucks snaking down a road near the entrance of the Fordow plant, obscured by rubble and dirt, was released by US defense contractor Maxar Technologies on June defense company TS2 Space reports that trucks, bulldozers, and security convoys swarm Fordow, where analysts observed a "frantic effort" to move shielding materials or intelligence analyst Ronen Solomon stated that transferring Iran's uranium would be "like having fuel without a car" and that they are unable to do much with it unless they develop a small-scale project that we are unaware of, as per The also warned that Iran might be concealing this and other nuclear components in places that Israel, the United States, and the U.N. nuclear inspectors are unaware would take years and rely on Tehran's capacity to restore essential equipment before Iran could produce a nuclear weapon, even though it might have the entirely; experts believe some deep underground facilities and uranium stockpiles were has the potential to rebuild, as key equipment and uranium may have been secretly relocated.
Time of India
27 minutes ago
- Time of India
Strait of Hormuz blockade looms: Asian countries most vulnerable to Iran's trump card
Around 84 percent of oil passing through the Strait of Hormuz is destined for Asia, leaving the economies of China, India, South Korea and others vulnerable should Iran blockade the crucial trading route over US strikes on its nuclear sites. Around 14.2 million barrels of crude oil and 5.9 million barrels of other petroleum products pass through the strait per day -- representing around 20 percent of global production in the first quarter, according to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA). And crude oil from Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar and Iran almost exclusively passes through the corridor. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Your IQ Is 140 If You Can Answer 10 Of These Questions Correctly IQ International Undo Here are the main Asian countries where oil exported via the strait is destined: China More than half of the oil imported by East Asia passes through the Strait of Hormuz, experts estimate. Live Events China is one of the largest buyers, importing 5.4 million barrels of crude oil a day through Hormuz in the first quarter this year, according to the EIA. Saudi Arabia is China's second-largest supplier of crude oil, accounting for 15 percent of its total oil imports -- 1.6 million barrels a day. China also buys more than 90 percent of Iran's oil exports, according to the analysis firm Kpler. It imported 1.3 million barrels of Iranian crude oil a day in April, down from a five-month high in March. India India is highly dependent on the Strait of Hormuz, importing 2.1 million barrels of crude a day through the corridor in the first quarter, EIA data shows. Around 53 percent of India's imported oil in early 2025 came from Middle Eastern suppliers, particularly Iraq and Saudi Arabia, local media reported. Also Read: India safe from Strait of Hormuz closure due to diversified oil imports, says Hardeep Singh Puri Wary of an escalating conflict in the Middle East, New Delhi has increased its imports of Russian oil over the past three years. "We have been closely monitoring the evolving geopolitical situation in the Middle East since the past two weeks," India's Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas Hardeep Singh Puri said on Sunday. "We have diversified our supplies in the past few years and a large volume of our supplies do not come through the Strait of Hormuz now," he wrote on X, adding "We will take all necessary steps to ensure stability of supplies of fuel to our citizens." South Korea Around 68 percent of South Korea's crude oil imports pass through the Strait of Hormuz -- 1.7 million barrels a day this year, according to the EIA. South Korea is particularly dependent on its main supplier Saudi Arabia, which last year accounted for a third of its oil imports. Seoul's trade and energy ministry said there have been "no disruptions so far in South Korea's crude oil and LNG imports" but "given the possibility of a supply crisis", officials were "planning for potential disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz". "The government and industry stakeholders have prepared for emergencies by maintaining a strategic petroleum reserve equivalent to about 200 days of supply," the ministry said in a statement. Japan Japan imports 1.6 million barrels of crude oil a day through the Strait of Hormuz, the EIA says. Japanese customs data showed 95 percent of crude oil imports last year came from the Middle East. The country's energy freight companies are readying for a potential blockade of the strait. "We're currently taking measures to shorten as much as possible the time spent by our vessels in the Gulf," shipping giant Mitsui OSK told AFP. Others Around 2 million barrels of crude oil passing through the Strait of Hormuz each day in the first quarter were destined for other parts of Asia -- particularly Thailand and the Philippines -- as well as Europe (0.5 million barrels) and the United States (0.4 million barrels). Limited alternatives Asian countries could diversify their oil suppliers, but it is difficult to replace the large volumes coming from the Middle East. In the short term, "elevated global oil inventories, OPEC+'s available spare capacity, and US shale production all could provide some buffer", experts at MUFG Bank said. "However, a full closure of the Hormuz Strait would still impact on the accessibility of a major part of this spare production capacity concentrated in the Persian Gulf," they said. Saudi Arabia and the UAE have infrastructure to bypass the strait, potentially mitigating disruptions, but their transit capacity remains very limited -- around 2.6 million barrels a day. And the Goreh-Jask pipeline built by Iran to export via the Gulf of Oman, which has been inactive since last year, has a maximum capacity of only 300,000 barrels per day, according to the EIA.
