Iranians exhausted by prospect of more fighting with Israel: ‘no hope’

‘Nothing is clear. People don’t know what to do, they are angry. Ultimately, it needs to be decided: are we at war or at peace?’

Residents of Tehran awoke on Monday anxious and drained by the prospect of full-scale war resuming, following tit-for-tat strikes between arch-foes Iran and Israel that marked the greatest threat to the fragile ceasefire thus far.

“We don’t know if there will be a war, nor if a peace deal will last,” said Maryam, a 41-year-old accountant in Tehran’s central Valiasr Square.

She described a pervasive “sense of uncertainty and confusion” after Israeli strikes on Tehran on Sunday, which came in response to Iranian strikes on Israel.

“Nothing is clear. People don’t know what to do, they are angry. Ultimately, it needs to be decided: are we at war or at peace?” she said, shortly before Iran announced it was ceasing its strikes on Israel.

Since Sunday evening, Iran had launched about 30 missiles at Israel, according to an Israeli military official, in response to deadly Israeli strikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs.