Iran

How many people have been displaced in Iran? Up to 3.2 million people, according to the UN’s refugee agency. Here, Tehran residents speak about their daily life under bombardment. NPR - Iran launched a barrage of missile attacks on Israel after confirming the deaths of two high-ranking officials, Ali Larijani and Gholamreza Soleimani. The Revolutionary Guard announced that it launched multiple warhead missiles today targeting the Tel Aviv area. Israel also carried out an assault on central Beirut overnight, resulting in the deaths of 10 people. The Israeli military stated that it aimed to target Hezbollah militants and their installations.

NPR’s Arezou Rezvani tells Up First that she spent a few hours at the Haji Omeran border crossing interviewing people who were leaving Iran and entering Iraq. During that time, she says that one of the most striking things she noticed was how terrified people were to speak. Rezvani spoke with a woman in her 60s from a border city in Iran who asked not to be named for fear of government reprisal, even outside of the country. The woman avoided talking about the war, but did tell Rezvani that she wished the airstrikes on her city had killed her, expressing how her life had become unbearable. Iran has been under an intense internet blackout for the last couple of weeks, making it hard to contact people inside the country. Iranians who have managed to get online report seeing increased checkpoints in their cities and towns, where security forces are checking phones for apps used to bypass the blackout.