My real life story during Iran Israel war
I’m an Iranian astrophysicist abroad. All my family and friends are in Iran. This is my personal story of how do Iranians feel about Israel today and they’re affected by the recent war.
I just arrived in Namibia for a month-long telescope project when news breaks of the Israel-Iran conflict: missiles raining down on Tehran.
I had a dream that many spiders were in my room. I am terrified of spiders. I was shocked and scared because I thought my room was safe. I asked a friend to come and kill them, but more and more kept appearing. I was horrified.
I woke up and checked my phone. My heart was still racing. I saw a message from a friend: “Hey, how is your family? I saw the news and wanted to check in.”
“Wait—my family? What news?” I asked myself.
My childhood nightmare had come true: Israel had attacked Iran. They aimed for commanders but also hit residential buildings, and many civilians were killed.
I pressed the call button. Mom answered on the second ring.
“Are you all ok? Did you hear anything?” I asked my mom.
“Yes, it was very loud, and we woke up. We’re fine. Don’t worry. Your brother came to our apartment at five in the morning. He was so worried.”
Her voice is steady—too steady.
“They target scientists. We have university professors in our building. You should leave that apartment,” I told her. “They kill neighbors too. They kill many people just to hit one.”
“We can leave now, but what about later? This is our home,”
“Mom, please—just pack a bag.”
Dad takes the phone.
“We are officially at war now with Israel. I wish we had never come to this point,” he said.
This is the man who spent eight years on the Iran-Iraq front, was arrested twice by the Islamic Republic’s regime, and never was silent.
“Life and death,” he reminds me, “belong to God. Keep looking at the stars.”
I want to argue, to book them tickets, to fold the entire city into my suitcase. Instead I swallow my tears and listen.
The real life story of my parents
My parents are symbols of courage and suffering to me. In their twenties they fought for freedom during the 1979 Revolution.
Then eight years of war came. My father went back and forth to the front for eight years while my mother raised two infants in Tehran alone. Every night when rockets flew over the city, she had to carry them to the basement.
Whenever my father left, there was no way to communicate unless he would call by phone or send a letter. Every goodbye could have been the last.
My father never stopped believing in freedom, justice, and peace. When he saw the new regime betray those ideals, he stood against what he had once tried to build.
In 2008 he joined the Green Movement protests and got arrested twice. My mother stood firmly by him. She was standing outside of the prison gate waiting and protesting.
Their shared values keep them side by side, and always inspire me to see how fearless they are to speak up and stand up for something that is true.
Now my father is sixty-eight and my mother sixty-three. They have not slept for several nights because of the sounds of explosions and drones over our hometown.
Now face missiles and drones again. How many more times must they suffer? I ask myself.
I come from a generation of fighting, trauma. All the men in my family have been to war: my father, my uncles, my grandfathers. Two of my siblings were born and grew up in a war. I grew up fearing it, and now it is my reality.
Tonight I’ll point my telescope at a galaxy that died millions of years ago and hope my own world survives till morning. And I think of my 8-year-old nephew who counts booms in the sky as a game to calm down. I wish I was there to hold his hand.
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