Israeli tanks kill 59 people at Khan Younis aid site in Gaza, local medics say

How the innocuous pager set in motion a potentially catastrophic war

Sydney Morning Herald

2 hours ago

Sydney Morning Herald

How the innocuous pager set in motion a potentially catastrophic war

Future historians might one day marvel at how a device as innocuous as a pager came to play such a significant role in the destabilisation of the Middle East, and the threat of a potentially catastrophic war radiating across the region. On September 17, Israel's intelligence agency, Mossad, issued an electronic instruction to thousands of pagers it had fed into the hands of unwitting members of Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed militia that had embedded itself in Lebanon, posing a constant threat to Israel from its northern border. Two waves of explosions followed, as tiny and powerful charges in the devices detonated. Alongside the civilians killed and injured, the attack removed 1500 Hezbollah fighters from combat, many of them maimed or blinded, Reuters later reported, citing a Hezbollah source. But more significantly than that, its terrible success emboldened Israel. Israeli war planners had for years been concerned that an all-out confrontation with the powerful militia could provoke a devastating barrage of missiles. Hezbollah was known to have stockpiled thousands of the weapons, supplied by Iran. But with the militia in disarray, its communications obliterated, the threat was diminished. The scene for the current crisis was set. Days after what became known as Operation Grim Beeper, Israeli warplanes dropped bunker-buster bombs on what it described as Hezbollah's headquarters in the southern suburbs of Beirut during a leadership meeting, killing 195 people, according to Lebanon's health ministry. Among them was Hassan Nasrallah, the Shiite cleric who had led the group since 1992. This signalled the grim dynamics of the region's geopolitics had shifted. For decades, Iran has advocated for the destruction of Israel, and for decades it propped up proxies to prosecute its conflict, channelling funds not only to Hezbollah in Lebanon, but to Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas in Gaza. Israel and Iran fought by proxy in Yemen, where Iran supported the Houthis, and in the Syrian civil war, where Iran backed the Assad regime. But in recent years, Iran's network of proxies has been battered, leaving it temptingly vulnerable. Israel has largely annihilated Hamas in the vicious war in Gaza unleashed by the group's October 7 terrorist attacks in 2023. The Assad regime in Syria fell a year later. The Houthis have been diminished by an international bombing campaign against them, led by the US in response to that group's attacks on shipping in the Red Sea. All the while Israel has been building its ties with Arab states opposed to Iran's regional ambitions under the so-called Abraham Accords. The nuclear deal In July 2015, after two years of negotiations, Iran and the five permanent members of the UN security council, plus Germany and the EU, signed what was formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, and informally as the Iran nuclear deal. Under the deal, Iran would agree to restrictions on its development of nuclear technologies and uranium enrichment program – and to international inspections of its nuclear facilities – in return for relief from crippling sanctions. Then-US president Barack Obama considered the deal to be a crowning achievement of his administration, but it was bitterly opposed Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, as well as the powerful Israel lobby in the US, which had become increasingly aligned with the US political right. 'It blocks every possible pathway Iran could use to build a nuclear bomb while ensuring – through a comprehensive, intrusive and unprecedented verification and transparency regime – that Iran's nuclear program remains exclusively peaceful moving forward,' the Obama White House said at the time. In his campaign against the deal, Netanyahu visited the US Capitol without a formal invitation from Obama, telling Congress that the deal would 'not prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons, it would all but guarantee Iran gets nuclear weapons – lots of them'. The deal's opponents believed that it facilitated the Iranian pretence that its nuclear program was civilian in intent, and noted that its sunset clauses would allow Iran to resume various parts of its nuclear program within 10 to 16 years. Either way, when Donald Trump was inaugurated in 2017, he set about unravelling the Obama legacy. The Iran deal was one of his key targets. He dumped it 2018, describing it as a 'horrible one-sided deal that should have never, ever been made'. It was at this point, says Amin Saikal, emeritus professor of Middle Eastern studies at the Australian National University, that the current crisis became inevitable. The deal contained a 'snap back' clause, nullifying the deal should one side break its terms. At the time, the UN's watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, said there was no evidence that Iran was in contravention of the deal. But with the US out, Iran again ramped up its nuclear program. Israel, having diminished Iran's proxies around the region, prepared for strikes on Iran, which had always been Netanyahu's key target. In October last year, Iran lobbed a volley of missiles into Israel, which responded with a wave of airstrikes later that month. More than 100 Israeli aircraft attacked, targeting military sites including missile production facilities, a drone factory, and most notably, destroying much of Iran's Russian-supplied air defence system. All Israeli aircraft returned safely to their bases. Earlier this month, on June 11, the US pulled personnel out of the Middle East, which Trump said, 'could be a dangerous place'. The following day, the IAEA board declared Iran was in breach of its obligations under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. On June 13, the Israel Defence Forces issued a statement saying it had intelligence that Iran was nearing 'the point of no return' in its race towards a nuclear weapon. 'The regime is producing thousands of kilograms of enriched uranium, alongside decentralised and fortified enrichment compounds, in underground, fortified sites. This program has accelerated significantly in recent months, bringing the regime significantly closer to obtaining a nuclear weapon. 'The Iranian regime has been working for decades to obtain a nuclear weapon. The world has attempted every possible diplomatic path to stop it, but the regime has refused to stop. The State of Israel has been left with no choice.' First strikes Israel's first strikes hit Iran's top military leadership and nuclear facilities on June 12, with Iranian media confirming the attacks killed Iranian Armed Forces General Staff Chief Major General Mohammad Bagheri, Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps Commander Major General Hossein Salami, Khatam-al-Anbiya Central Headquarters Commander Gholam Ali Rashid, nuclear scientist and former head of the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran Fereydoon Abbasi, and physicist and president of the Islamic Azad University Mohammad Mehdi Tehranchi, according to the Institute for the Study of War, a non-partisan US think tank. Since then, Israel has continued its attacks, targeting key personnel as well as dozens of military and nuclear sites. Iran has responded with missile and drone attacks on Israel. Though hundreds of its missiles have been intercepted and destroyed, many have penetrated the nation's Iron Dome air defence system. Israeli air attacks have killed 639 people in Iran, said the Human Rights Activists News Agency. Israel has said at least 24 Israeli civilians have died in Iranian missile attacks. Reuters could not independently verify the death toll from either side. A key site Israel has been unable to destroy is the Fordow uranium enrichment facility buried deep beneath a mountain 30 kilometres north of the city of Quom, and this brings us back to the role of the US. So heavily hardened is Fordow that Israel lacks the capacity to destroy it, and most analyses of the facility suggest that only the US has the technology to do so. Multiple strikes on the facility by US B2 bombers carrying so-called bunker-buster bombs – 13.6 tonne 'Massive Ordnance Penetrators' – would be required, according to the Centre for Strategic and International Studies. The madman theory To the extent that Donald Trump has a foreign policy doctrine, he might best be described as an adherent to the madman theory advanced by president Richard Nixon, who believed that if he fostered a reputation for being irrational and volatile, threats that might otherwise be viewed as untenable might carry more weight. Trump is leaning in to Nixon's lessons. When asked by The Wall Street Journal last year if he would use military force to respond to a Chinese attack on Taiwan, Trump said he wouldn't have to because Chinese leader Xi Jinping 'respects me and he knows I'm f---ing crazy'. Trump's response to the current conflict has been, at best, unpredictable. In April, he recommenced negotiations with Iran, demanding it agree to end all uranium enrichment and destroy its stockpile of 400 kilograms of enriched uranium at a 60 per cent purity level. Iran refused, while Israel opposed the talks being held at all. According to Saikal of the ANU, the talks failed because the US kept raising the bar. In keeping with the isolationist views of his MAGA movement, Trump spent the early months of his second term seeking to restrain Netanyahu, reversing course after his abrupt departure from the G7 talks earlier this week. Discussing engaging in strikes on Iran, he told reporters at the White House on Wednesday, 'I may do it. I may not do it. I mean, nobody knows what I'm going to do'. On social media that day, he declared, 'We know exactly where the so-called 'Supreme Leader' is hiding. We are not going to take him out (kill!), at least not for now … Our patience is wearing thin.' Three minutes later, he posted, 'UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!' On Thursday, Trump announced he would give himself two weeks to decide. 'That could be cover for a decision to strike, immediately,' James G. Stavridis, a retired Navy admiral and the former supreme US commander in Europe, said on CNN. 'Maybe this is a very clever ruse to lull the Iranians into a sense of complacency.' Loading Saikal believes Trump is likely to deploy a US bomber to hit Fordow, though he bases this on his years of analysis of the region rather than any specific information. He fears the implications. Even with its weakened network of proxies, Iran could close the Strait of Hormuz, through which a quarter of the world's oil and gas supply travels. He notes that even in its weakened state, Iran maintains close ties with China and Russia. And while Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei remains an unpopular autocrat, leading a nation weakened by years of sanctions, the antibody response of an outside attack could firm his base, Saikal believes. So far, analysts have been surprised by how quickly Israel was able to dominate Iranian skies, suggesting that not only did earlier strikes weaken Iran's defence, but that the regime has been white-anted by corruption and patronage. As sanctions crippled civilian life in Iran over recent years, members of the Revolutionary Guard (which was founded after the revolution to defend the Islamic Republic from internal and external threats) profited from blackmarket oil sales and the development of monopolies over consumer goods, says Dr Kylie Moore-Gilbert. The Australian specialist in Middle Eastern political science, now at Macquarie University, was imprisoned by the regime in an act of hostage diplomacy in 2018. 'I was arrested by the intelligence branch of the IRGC, and I spent a lot of time, unfortunately, talking to them and getting to know them over several years. And clearly, many of them are incompetent. They're in their roles because of ideological affinity, and who their family members are, not because of competence or expertise.' It may well be that the US hopes to eradicate Iran's nuclear program while allowing the regime to survive, but Netanyahu appears to determined to see it fall. Asked on Friday morning if he considered Khamenei a 'dead man', Netanyahu ducked the question. Loading 'Every option remains open, though I would rather not discuss such matters publicly and allow our actions to communicate our intentions,' he said. Moore-Gilbert believes the Revolutionary Guard, rather than some unnamed progressive movement, is the likely successor should the regime be toppled. No alternative exists. Should that happen, Israel might not like what emerges. 'It is a hardline fundamentalist Islamist organisation with a kind of worldview that believes in exporting the ideology of the Iranian Revolution, particularly to other parts of the Shia Islamic world, but more broadly as well. 'It's virulently antisemitic and anti-American, anti-Western. It is conspiratorial and paranoid.' Saikal believes that whatever form of Iranian leadership emerges from the current crisis will be even more determined to secure nuclear weapons. It will, after all, have seen what happens without them.

The Age

2 hours ago

The Age

How the innocuous pager set in motion a potentially catastrophic war

Future historians might one day marvel at how a device as innocuous as a pager came to play such a significant role in the destabilisation of the Middle East, and the threat of a potentially catastrophic war radiating across the region. On September 17, Israel's intelligence agency, Mossad, issued an electronic instruction to thousands of pagers it had fed into the hands of unwitting members of Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed militia that had embedded itself in Lebanon, posing a constant threat to Israel from its northern border. Two waves of explosions followed, as tiny and powerful charges in the devices detonated. Alongside the civilians killed and injured, the attack removed 1500 Hezbollah fighters from combat, many of them maimed or blinded, Reuters later reported, citing a Hezbollah source. But more significantly than that, its terrible success emboldened Israel. Israeli war planners had for years been concerned that an all-out confrontation with the powerful militia could provoke a devastating barrage of missiles. Hezbollah was known to have stockpiled thousands of the weapons, supplied by Iran. But with the militia in disarray, its communications obliterated, the threat was diminished. The scene for the current crisis was set. Days after what became known as Operation Grim Beeper, Israeli warplanes dropped bunker-buster bombs on what it described as Hezbollah's headquarters in the southern suburbs of Beirut during a leadership meeting, killing 195 people, according to Lebanon's health ministry. Among them was Hassan Nasrallah, the Shiite cleric who had led the group since 1992. This signalled the grim dynamics of the region's geopolitics had shifted. For decades, Iran has advocated for the destruction of Israel, and for decades it propped up proxies to prosecute its conflict, channelling funds not only to Hezbollah in Lebanon, but to Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas in Gaza. Israel and Iran fought by proxy in Yemen, where Iran supported the Houthis, and in the Syrian civil war, where Iran backed the Assad regime. But in recent years, Iran's network of proxies has been battered, leaving it temptingly vulnerable. Israel has largely annihilated Hamas in the vicious war in Gaza unleashed by the group's October 7 terrorist attacks in 2023. The Assad regime in Syria fell a year later. The Houthis have been diminished by an international bombing campaign against them, led by the US in response to that group's attacks on shipping in the Red Sea. All the while Israel has been building its ties with Arab states opposed to Iran's regional ambitions under the so-called Abraham Accords. The nuclear deal In July 2015, after two years of negotiations, Iran and the five permanent members of the UN security council, plus Germany and the EU, signed what was formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, and informally as the Iran nuclear deal. Under the deal, Iran would agree to restrictions on its development of nuclear technologies and uranium enrichment program – and to international inspections of its nuclear facilities – in return for relief from crippling sanctions. Then-US president Barack Obama considered the deal to be a crowning achievement of his administration, but it was bitterly opposed Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, as well as the powerful Israel lobby in the US, which had become increasingly aligned with the US political right. 'It blocks every possible pathway Iran could use to build a nuclear bomb while ensuring – through a comprehensive, intrusive and unprecedented verification and transparency regime – that Iran's nuclear program remains exclusively peaceful moving forward,' the Obama White House said at the time. In his campaign against the deal, Netanyahu visited the US Capitol without a formal invitation from Obama, telling Congress that the deal would 'not prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons, it would all but guarantee Iran gets nuclear weapons – lots of them'. The deal's opponents believed that it facilitated the Iranian pretence that its nuclear program was civilian in intent, and noted that its sunset clauses would allow Iran to resume various parts of its nuclear program within 10 to 16 years. Either way, when Donald Trump was inaugurated in 2017, he set about unravelling the Obama legacy. The Iran deal was one of his key targets. He dumped it 2018, describing it as a 'horrible one-sided deal that should have never, ever been made'. It was at this point, says Amin Saikal, emeritus professor of Middle Eastern studies at the Australian National University, that the current crisis became inevitable. The deal contained a 'snap back' clause, nullifying the deal should one side break its terms. At the time, the UN's watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, said there was no evidence that Iran was in contravention of the deal. But with the US out, Iran again ramped up its nuclear program. Israel, having diminished Iran's proxies around the region, prepared for strikes on Iran, which had always been Netanyahu's key target. In October last year, Iran lobbed a volley of missiles into Israel, which responded with a wave of airstrikes later that month. More than 100 Israeli aircraft attacked, targeting military sites including missile production facilities, a drone factory, and most notably, destroying much of Iran's Russian-supplied air defence system. All Israeli aircraft returned safely to their bases. Earlier this month, on June 11, the US pulled personnel out of the Middle East, which Trump said, 'could be a dangerous place'. The following day, the IAEA board declared Iran was in breach of its obligations under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. On June 13, the Israel Defence Forces issued a statement saying it had intelligence that Iran was nearing 'the point of no return' in its race towards a nuclear weapon. 'The regime is producing thousands of kilograms of enriched uranium, alongside decentralised and fortified enrichment compounds, in underground, fortified sites. This program has accelerated significantly in recent months, bringing the regime significantly closer to obtaining a nuclear weapon. 'The Iranian regime has been working for decades to obtain a nuclear weapon. The world has attempted every possible diplomatic path to stop it, but the regime has refused to stop. The State of Israel has been left with no choice.' First strikes Israel's first strikes hit Iran's top military leadership and nuclear facilities on June 12, with Iranian media confirming the attacks killed Iranian Armed Forces General Staff Chief Major General Mohammad Bagheri, Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps Commander Major General Hossein Salami, Khatam-al-Anbiya Central Headquarters Commander Gholam Ali Rashid, nuclear scientist and former head of the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran Fereydoon Abbasi, and physicist and president of the Islamic Azad University Mohammad Mehdi Tehranchi, according to the Institute for the Study of War, a non-partisan US think tank. Since then, Israel has continued its attacks, targeting key personnel as well as dozens of military and nuclear sites. Iran has responded with missile and drone attacks on Israel. Though hundreds of its missiles have been intercepted and destroyed, many have penetrated the nation's Iron Dome air defence system. Israeli air attacks have killed 639 people in Iran, said the Human Rights Activists News Agency. Israel has said at least 24 Israeli civilians have died in Iranian missile attacks. Reuters could not independently verify the death toll from either side. A key site Israel has been unable to destroy is the Fordow uranium enrichment facility buried deep beneath a mountain 30 kilometres north of the city of Quom, and this brings us back to the role of the US. So heavily hardened is Fordow that Israel lacks the capacity to destroy it, and most analyses of the facility suggest that only the US has the technology to do so. Multiple strikes on the facility by US B2 bombers carrying so-called bunker-buster bombs – 13.6 tonne 'Massive Ordnance Penetrators' – would be required, according to the Centre for Strategic and International Studies. The madman theory To the extent that Donald Trump has a foreign policy doctrine, he might best be described as an adherent to the madman theory advanced by president Richard Nixon, who believed that if he fostered a reputation for being irrational and volatile, threats that might otherwise be viewed as untenable might carry more weight. Trump is leaning in to Nixon's lessons. When asked by The Wall Street Journal last year if he would use military force to respond to a Chinese attack on Taiwan, Trump said he wouldn't have to because Chinese leader Xi Jinping 'respects me and he knows I'm f---ing crazy'. Trump's response to the current conflict has been, at best, unpredictable. In April, he recommenced negotiations with Iran, demanding it agree to end all uranium enrichment and destroy its stockpile of 400 kilograms of enriched uranium at a 60 per cent purity level. Iran refused, while Israel opposed the talks being held at all. According to Saikal of the ANU, the talks failed because the US kept raising the bar. In keeping with the isolationist views of his MAGA movement, Trump spent the early months of his second term seeking to restrain Netanyahu, reversing course after his abrupt departure from the G7 talks earlier this week. Discussing engaging in strikes on Iran, he told reporters at the White House on Wednesday, 'I may do it. I may not do it. I mean, nobody knows what I'm going to do'. On social media that day, he declared, 'We know exactly where the so-called 'Supreme Leader' is hiding. We are not going to take him out (kill!), at least not for now … Our patience is wearing thin.' Three minutes later, he posted, 'UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!' On Thursday, Trump announced he would give himself two weeks to decide. 'That could be cover for a decision to strike, immediately,' James G. Stavridis, a retired Navy admiral and the former supreme US commander in Europe, said on CNN. 'Maybe this is a very clever ruse to lull the Iranians into a sense of complacency.' Loading Saikal believes Trump is likely to deploy a US bomber to hit Fordow, though he bases this on his years of analysis of the region rather than any specific information. He fears the implications. Even with its weakened network of proxies, Iran could close the Strait of Hormuz, through which a quarter of the world's oil and gas supply travels. He notes that even in its weakened state, Iran maintains close ties with China and Russia. And while Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei remains an unpopular autocrat, leading a nation weakened by years of sanctions, the antibody response of an outside attack could firm his base, Saikal believes. So far, analysts have been surprised by how quickly Israel was able to dominate Iranian skies, suggesting that not only did earlier strikes weaken Iran's defence, but that the regime has been white-anted by corruption and patronage. As sanctions crippled civilian life in Iran over recent years, members of the Revolutionary Guard (which was founded after the revolution to defend the Islamic Republic from internal and external threats) profited from blackmarket oil sales and the development of monopolies over consumer goods, says Dr Kylie Moore-Gilbert. The Australian specialist in Middle Eastern political science, now at Macquarie University, was imprisoned by the regime in an act of hostage diplomacy in 2018. 'I was arrested by the intelligence branch of the IRGC, and I spent a lot of time, unfortunately, talking to them and getting to know them over several years. And clearly, many of them are incompetent. They're in their roles because of ideological affinity, and who their family members are, not because of competence or expertise.' It may well be that the US hopes to eradicate Iran's nuclear program while allowing the regime to survive, but Netanyahu appears to determined to see it fall. Asked on Friday morning if he considered Khamenei a 'dead man', Netanyahu ducked the question. Loading 'Every option remains open, though I would rather not discuss such matters publicly and allow our actions to communicate our intentions,' he said. Moore-Gilbert believes the Revolutionary Guard, rather than some unnamed progressive movement, is the likely successor should the regime be toppled. No alternative exists. Should that happen, Israel might not like what emerges. 'It is a hardline fundamentalist Islamist organisation with a kind of worldview that believes in exporting the ideology of the Iranian Revolution, particularly to other parts of the Shia Islamic world, but more broadly as well. 'It's virulently antisemitic and anti-American, anti-Western. It is conspiratorial and paranoid.' Saikal believes that whatever form of Iranian leadership emerges from the current crisis will be even more determined to secure nuclear weapons. It will, after all, have seen what happens without them.

From chaos to abandoned streets, inside Iran as the conflict with Israel escalates

ABC News

2 hours ago

ABC News

From chaos to abandoned streets, inside Iran as the conflict with Israel escalates

Fear and confusion have swept Tehran. On the streets, the situation has gone from utter chaos — traffic jams as thousands fled the capital in direct the aftermath of Israel's attacks — to eerie silence amid shuttered shopfronts and abandoned streets. Iranians, who have spoken to the ABC, say they are frightened by the barrage of rockets, by the uncertainty of what comes next, and by the prospect of the Islamic Republic turning on its citizens — again. "Unfortunately, the internet has been completely and widely cut off inside, but now [briefly] I was able to connect after hours, which is like a miracle," said one prominent Iranian activist and former political prisoner whose identity has been concealed for safety reasons. Iran's government has already responded to Israel's latest military attacks with internet restrictions and arrests of journalists and dissidents within the country, according to reports from people inside Iran. They also report that police checks have ramped up, and access to cash from banking networks is being cut off. Israel has launched a series of air strikes on Iran since last Friday, claiming Tehran was "marching very quickly" to "weaponise the uranium". It came after a report from the United Nations watchdog that found Iran had failed to comply with its nuclear obligations — the first time in almost 20 years. Iran has denied Israel's claim, launching retaliatory air strikes on Tel Aviv. As hostilities between Israel and Iran intensify, people inside Iran who have spoken to ABC News are worried the conflict could result in high civilian deaths, but also fear what could happen if the Islamic Republic of Iran loses its grip on power. There are reports that Iran's government is ramping up inspections of citizens across the country. The activist who spoke to the ABC is based in Tehran, but says, "these inspections are also seen in abundance in urban areas". "My car and everyone else were thoroughly inspected one by one," she says. "The situation is very stressful. The internet and people's access to the free flow of information are cut off, but government mercenaries and government bloggers have access to the open and free internet to take control of the situation and make people believe that everything is safe and secure, when it is not at all. She wishes there was a way to connect Iranians with the outside world and "convey the people's voices abroad". But she says, instead they are being shut off from the world. "We are held hostage by a corrupt, oppressive, and lying government [in Iran]," she says before losing contact as her internet gets cut off once again. This feeling of being held prisoner and disconnected from the outside world is a common sentiment expressed by Iranians who spoke to ABC News. Unlike those who have fled Iran in recent days, leaving isn't an option for Sara whose name has been changed for her safety. She is eight months' pregnant, and unable to risk being too far from her doctor or the hospital. A vocal critic of the regime, she is intimately familiar with the Islamic Republic's brutal record — and has taken part in every major protest since the 2009 Green Movement. "You know what? We're not scared," she says, with a detached calm in her voice, even as blasts echo in the background. In 2018, she was arrested. During interrogation, they told her she would be raped, then killed. She was lucky — it was a scare tactic. A year later, about 1,500 people were killed during less than two weeks of protests that started on November 15, three Iranian interior ministry officials told Reuters based on information gathered from security forces, morgues, hospitals, and coroner's offices. Amnesty International reported the death toll was at least 304, while the US State Department estimated "many hundreds" of Iranians were killed and had seen reports that the figure could be more than 1,000. In the most recent 2022 protests sparked by the death in custody of 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian woman Mahsa Jina Amini, the Human Rights Activist News Agency estimated about 500 people were killed and more than 18,000 were arrested. Amnesty International accused Tehran of conducting "sham trials" which ended the lives of young detainees in the wake of the #Women, Life, Freedom protests She says Iranians have lived through far worse than the latest conflict. The Center for Human Rights in Iran said it was gravely concerned about the fate of political prisoners on death row in Iran. At least 54 individuals, including three women, had been sentenced to death before the outbreak of the conflict. "Iran must not be allowed to use the fog of war to eliminate its critics in silence," centre executive director Hadi Ghaemi said. Tehran has not provided regular updates on the death toll from Israeli bombing but the Washington-based Iranian group Human Rights Activists estimated at least 693 people, including top generals, scientists, and civilians, have been killed in Iran and more than 1,300 wounded. At least 24 civilians have been killed and hundreds have been wounded in Israel. In the hours and days following the Israeli strikes, Tehran transformed. The city didn't erupt in panic — it drained. People grabbed whatever they could — documents, water, petrol — and moved. The roads out of the capital pulsed with headlights pushing north, toward the Alborz mountains, toward anywhere else. It wasn't just fear. It was instinct. There were other exits, but most took the familiar routes — Chalous Road (Jaddeh-ye Chalous), Haraz, Fasham, the Tehran–Rasht highway. Every one of them jammed. Vehicles barely crawling. From overpasses and rooftops, it looked like a slow-moving exodus: families packed into sedans, sharing bread and sunflower seeds, eyes on their fuel gauges and their signal bars. Some said the traffic stretched over 100 kilometres. At one point, people left their cars, lit up cigarettes and walked for stretches, returning only when movement resumed — inch-by-inch, hour-by-hour. A week on, the picture has shifted. Tehran is typical hustle and bustle of millions — shoppers, students, taxis, soldiers — now echo under an unusual, metallic quiet. Many shops are shuttered. The footpaths almost empty. She speaks with a tone that's almost blasé — upsettingly relaxed for someone living through foreign air strikes. In her voice messages, there is even a faint smirk as she responds to the shock expressed by outsiders. She goes on to say, firmly, that Iranians do know what is going on. And she insists we get that on record. Then she pauses, before adding the harder part: "But what alternative do we have? Do you know how many people would have died to get just one of those murderers?" — referring to the more than 20 senior regime officials reportedly killed in Israeli strikes so far. She sends a short voice message: she'll be back. Her brother is calling. When she returns, her tone shifts. He's stuck on the road heading north — no fuel, no way forward. The highways are gridlocked with people fleeing Tehran. She and her husband can't reach him. No use even trying. She says she needs to figure something out — and then she's gone. Connection drops. And we lose her — to the unknown. When news of Israel's attack on Iran broke, Maryam says her first instinct was not political — it was visceral. "All I could remember was growing up during the Iran-Iraq war … constantly being afraid, running from the living room to beneath the staircase, waiting for Iraq's bombs to fall," she said. Rahil nods beside her. "The poor people," she says quietly. Maryam continues. "It's a dilemma. It's your land, your country — a piece of your heart — and it's being attacked. Of course, it feels off. It feels terrible." She presses her thumb and two fingers to her eyes. A pause. Then tears. They are most concerned for family members left in Iran — their brother Mohammad-Reza and his young family. With flights from Iran grounded, Mohammad-Reza was unable to get to Australia to see his father, Ezzatollah Shaker, before he passed. The ABC could not reach Mohammad-Reza directly. Finding a stable internet connection in Tehran had become a task in itself. But in a voice message, his emotions break through — torn, his voice cracking. "I miss my baba [father in Australia]. I missed his last days. I missed burying him," he says.

Israeli tanks kill 59 people at Khan Younis aid site in Gaza, local medics say

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How the innocuous pager set in motion a potentially catastrophic war

How the innocuous pager set in motion a potentially catastrophic war

From chaos to abandoned streets, inside Iran as the conflict with Israel escalates

Israeli tanks kill 59 people at Khan Younis aid site in Gaza, local medics say

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How the innocuous pager set in motion a potentially catastrophic war

How the innocuous pager set in motion a potentially catastrophic war

From chaos to abandoned streets, inside Iran as the conflict with Israel escalates

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