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Iranians voiced a sense of anxiety and uncertainty on Saturday after a round of retaliatory strikes by Israel on their country, but some said they felt a dim hope about what may lie ahead.
“Today at work, everyone was speaking of the attacks,” said Soheil, a 37-year-old engineer who lives in the central city of Isfahan. His colleagues saw some reason for hope that a wider war could be averted, given that Israel attacked only military targets on Saturday, he added.
“It seems that people are hopeful that soon the situation will be back to normal,” he told The New York Times when reached by telephone.
“The vibe is not normal, though, at the moment,” he said. “People are experiencing different emotions: Some are worried, some indifferent and some are even happy, because they believe that Israel attacks will humble the regime a bit.”
Soheil, like other Iranians reached by The Times on Saturday, asked not to be identified by his full name for fear of retribution.
Iranian officials and the state news media played down the Israeli attack, calling the damage “limited” and claiming that Iran’s air defense had intercepted the strikes.
Israel did not strike sensitive sites related to Iran’s nuclear program or oil production facilities in retaliation for the large barrage of ballistic missiles that Iran fired at Israel this month. And while the attack marked a new escalation between the two archrivals, it appeared to be calibrated to stop short of all-out war.
After the attack was completed, Iran did not immediately threaten to retaliate, but it did say that it had the right to do so.
On state television on Saturday, reporters around Tehran, the nation’s capital, cheerfully proclaimed that all was well. Live shots showed a vegetable market and morning rush-hour traffic.
But for some residents, it was a night of little sleep and high anxiety as the sounds of explosions kept them up.
Maryam Naraghi, an Iranian journalist, said she had heard “the sound of bombs and explosions” from her home in Tehran.
Houri, a 42-year-old mother of two in Tehran, said in a telephone interview that after a night of loud explosions and consoling her children, she was anxious about what lay ahead for Iranians, many of them having grown weary of conflict and years of economic hardship.
She said her husband had stayed glued to satellite television and social media all night for updates on the attacks because Iran’s state news media offered little information.
Yashar Soltani, a journalist, said he had woken up in Tehran to the sounds of an attack that seemed to be nearby.
“I saw very big lights in the sky,” he said.
The attack on military bases and other targets in Ilam, Khuzestan and Tehran Provinces lasted only a few hours and was over by about 5 a.m., Israeli officials said.
As the sun rose on Saturday, people in Iran tried to go on with their day as usual, hoping that a wider war could be avoided.
Shadi, a 41-year-old living in Tehran, said she had not heard any of the explosions overnight.
“We people of Iran are victims of all these political games,” she said. “We have experienced so much that we all have become somehow numb.”
Farnaz Fassihi contributed reporting.
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