CAIRO (AP) — Iranians have welcomed a fragile ceasefire deal after weeks of Israeli and American bombardment, but many fear the war is far from over. For some, there is also a sense of whiplash, after U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to wipe out their civilization hours before he reversed course and agreed to an uneasy truce.
The ceasefire that took effect Wednesday has brought relative quiet to the capital, Tehran, after more than a month of
heavy strikes that targeted mainly government and security buildings but also destroyed many homes.
Major issues remain unresolved, however, and the truce has already teetered in the face of Israel's ongoing war against the Iran-allied Hezbollah in Lebanon and Iran's refusal to fully open the Strait of Hormuz, a vital waterway for world energy supplies.
“Everyone I’ve spoken with, it’s given them a new life,” a university student told The Associated Press in an audio note via WhatsApp, speaking on condition of anonymity over fears for his safety.
“Everyone is really happy,” he said.
But “Tehran has seen a lot of damage,” he added, and there's widespread concern the fighting would resume.
AP spoke to half a dozen residents, despite an ongoing nationwide internet shutdown imposed during mass protests before the war.
Maryam Saeedpoor, a photographer living in downtown Tehran, said she tried to take up painting to keep busy as blasts echoed across the city during the war, “but then I saw my hand was shaking, and I can't.”
She said she's taken little comfort from the truce or Trump's decision to back off from threats to destroy critical infrastructure and bridges — messages from the president that culminated in a social media post saying: “A whole civilization will die tonight.”
She fears the strikes have already done lasting damage to industries and infrastructure that helped the country weather decades of international sanctions. She said the two-week truce is merely a “pause,” with no guarantee the war is over.
“Tehran is the warmest, the most beautiful city in the world in my opinion, but now its face is full of sadness, pain,” Saeedpoor said via WhatsApp audio note. “They say they wanted to take out government leaders, but so many innocent people have been killed.”
Well before the ceasefire, in a street near her own home, she said she saw rescue teams searching for survivors in the rubble of damaged residential buildings.
A photo she posted on Instagram captured the aftermath of another strike, days before the deal. “The building’s residents, by chance, weren’t home that day. All the homes along the street had been destroyed because they’d hit a police station,” she said.
The strikes killed over 1,900 people and wounded more than 5,700, according to the latest figures from Iranian authorities, who do not distinguish between soldiers and civilians. Iran's Red Crescent first responders say thousands of residential buildings were damaged.
For several hours Tuesday, it appeared as if the war would intensify.
Iranians stocked up on water or relocated to safer areas after Trump's threats, and many passed a sleepless night until the truce was announced shortly before the deadline he'd imposed.
A man in his late 20s who works in advertising said he jolted awake before dawn. When he didn't hear the thud of air defenses, he knew there had been a truce and went back to sleep “with a laugh and a smile,” he told the AP via audio note on the messaging app Telegram, also on condition of anonymity over safety fears.
Iranians are deeply divided over their government, and hundreds of thousands took to the streets in January before the mass protests were crushed.
But they take deep pride, not only in thousands of years of Persian civilization, but in the modern state that predates the 1979 Islamic Revolution — all of which appeared under threat from Trump.
Tehran is ringed by snow-capped mountains, and its 19th-century rulers built long, broad avenues lined with plane trees and water channels known as jub that still function today. Iran's oil wealth funded a construction boom before the revolution and the Iran-Iraq war. Now the scars of the latest war are everywhere.
Persian civilization is known, perhaps above all, for its literary legacy, and many ordinary Iranians can quote famed poets. A local journalist recently posted on his X account a photo of a stack of eggs on sale at a shop, with a sign above them reading: “Recite poetry, get a discount.”
Ali Jafarabadi, the head of Book City, Iran's largest bookstore chain, said that many turned to reading as they spent more time inside during the bombardment. Sales of historical fiction set during past wars, self-help books and adult coloring books were up, he said.
At least six of his branches across Tehran were damaged in the war, he said. One blast from a nearby strike ripped through the group’s main branch on the famous Shariati Street, shattering the front windows and driving a metal rod through a line of books in Jafarabadi's office.
The stores closed for the first few days of the war but soon reopened, and he told AP they have done brisk business in recent weeks.
“It shows people are craving books, people are craving culture, people are craving a safe space where they can come and connect with each other," Jafarabadi said in a phone call. “That is the people of Iran.”
A woman who works as a physical trainer and social media influencer told AP she had recently taken to riding her motorcycle around the city “as a form of civil resistance.” In addition to requiring women to cover their hair — though enforcement of that mandate is easing — Iran's theocracy has also long frowned on women riding motorcycles.
In her travels, she described seeing two faces of the city, and of modern Iran. In Tehran's wealthy northern hills, life often seemed to unfold as normal, with people packing into elegant cafes. Downtown, she visited cheaper, traditional cafes where hookahs were served and the clientele was mostly men. Strikes have hit both well-to-do and working-class parts of the city.
“The streets where a building has been damaged and destroyed, or the houses around it, are different," the trainer said, also speaking on condition of anonymity over fears for her safety. "Silence. The smell of death.”
Iran's divisions also were reflected in people's reactions to the truce. Many who despise the government had hoped the war would topple it. Some government supporters were disappointed that Iran had agreed to halt a war they felt it was winning.
The man who works in advertising said most people were somewhere in between.
“Most people in Iran, unlike what you find on a platform like Twitter, are moderates,” he said. “Everyone is looking for an improved situation, not a radicalized situation at any cost.”
