Iranians enjoying life 2016 © Jan Oberg
An Iranian voice of true peace
“The brutal truth is:
We are not citizens in this story.
We are not even collateral damage.
We are the targets.”
Elaheh Pooyandeh, TFF Associate
Written on February 28, 2026, and published on March 9, 2026.
I’m a night owl. I usually get to work around 10 a.m. This morning, I’m on the subway, just two stations away from the office, when my phone rings. It’s my young colleague. For weeks, he has been obsessively following the news of a possible war, refreshing pages, scanning channels, bracing himself.
“Hi Elaheh,” he says. “Israel has attacked again.”
By the time I reach the office, some colleagues are already leaving to pick up their children. Others stand, frozen, trying to decide what to do or waiting for someone to come for them. A few minutes later, the evacuation notice arrives. Our office is in the center of Tehran, in an all-glass building. Staying is not an option. Glass does not negotiate with missiles.
I leave and go back to the subway. The station is overflowing with people—anxious, restless—trying to get somewhere, as quickly as possible, as if speed itself could offer protection. It’s so crowded that I have to wait for several trains before I can squeeze in. Inside the carriage, people are talking about the attack. And then someone says, almost casually:
“Ah, it’s targeted attacks.”
“Oh really?” I say. “Then, for example, the attack on Evin Prison last time was targeted too?”
“You don’t know,” they reply, with a smirk. “It was the judiciary’s medical clinic.”
As if that distinction matters.
As if precision cleanses violence.
As if renaming a target resurrects the dead.
I get home. There is no internet, only intranet. By now, this is routine. Any crisis, any tension, even the smallest sign of instability, and access is cut. The Internet here is no longer part of life; it is a privilege that can be revoked at will. What remains are state television and a handful of Iranian news outlets, most of them echoing official narratives. I avoid those as much as I can. I refuse to donate my attention to propaganda.
I tell myself I won’t obsess. I refresh the page once an hour.
That’s when I read about the attack on Minab Girls’ Elementary School. At least a dozen children are dead. My stomach drops. An hour later, the number is twenty. I check again. And again. A few hours pass, and the number is fifty-seven. I burst into tears.
Fifty-seven children.
Killed in minutes.
Now I’m afraid to check the news – but I can’t stop. The number keeps rising. Eighty. More. And one phrase keeps circling in my head, like an insult disguised as analysis:
“Targeted attacks.”
One hundred and eight targeted attacks (1).
Targeted attacks that kill children in minutes.
Targeted attacks that are supposed to bring peace, freedom, and democracy.
Targeted attacks that will “relieve us” from the suffering of an authoritarian regime.
Targeted attacks that cancel our projects, suspend our lives, and leave us jobless overnight.
Targeted attacks that tear apart homes.
Targeted attacks that target life itself.
Targeted attacks that are normalised – expected – when they happen to people in this geography.
Targeted attacks that are called “pre-emptive strikes” when carried out by Israel or the United States, but evidence of barbarism when attributed to Iranians.
Targeted attacks that Western media frame as efforts to “stop Iran’s nuclear program” or deliver a “regime change” that Iranians are supposedly begging for.
And then I remember something else.
As I leave the subway station that day, I hear a young person say out loud, while walking, with a flatness that frightens me more than anger ever could:
“Let them attack and kill us all. It’ll be a relief.”
Words that come from exhaustion.
So yes – no matter how bitter these words sound, they reflect a brutal truth.
We are not citizens in this story.
We are not even collateral damage.
We are the targets.
Footnote
(1) The final count of schoolchildren killed in this attack reaches 165.
