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When Israel launched its sustained assault on Iran’s nuclear programme and military leaders on Friday, Sareh began cycling through a range of emotions.

“I felt happiness,” the Iranian woman said, at the deaths of leaders who had long repressed the country’s people.

“Then disbelief,” she continued from her home in the northern city of Rasht.

“Then some worry for what would happen next. Then happiness again, for how much power these people felt they had over us, how many of us they killed.”

Like others interviewed for this report, she spoke on the condition that her last name be withheld for fear of retaliation from the Government.

As Israel, Iran’s longtime enemy, attacks its oppressive Government, ordinary Iranians are feeling conflicting emotions: hope and hopelessness; celebration and trepidation.

They have suffered years of anaemic economic growth and double-digit inflation, corruption at every level of government and global isolation.

They have also lived through multiple rounds of protest crushed by authorities with deadly force.

Many Iranians have grown deeply pessimistic that they can change their government for the better by themselves.

So, some looked to the attacks, in which Israel killed top Iranian military leaders and nuclear scientists, bombed nuclear and military sites and crippled air defences, as a potential means of salvation - though one that carries immense risks.

“We are killed a thousand times with stress, especially for people like myself who have kids,” said Behnaz, 40, a single mother in Tabriz, where Israel said it destroyed a base used by the Iranian Air Force.

Some Iranians welcomed the attacks, she said; others are terrified of the unpredictable consequences of war. Her own feelings are fluid.

“I understand them both and at different times my own feelings are closer to one of these groups and then the other,” Behnaz said.

Given government repression, it can be difficult to gauge public sentiment in Iran.

Polling is limited, many Iranians are unwilling to speak to foreign journalists and those who do may hold views that aren’t representative of the wider population.

And if Israel widens its attacks beyond military and nuclear programme targets - a possibility, given Defence Minister Israel Katz’s warning yesterday that if Iran continued to fire missiles, “Tehran will burn” - those views could change.

The Iranian Government, meanwhile, is trying to control public reactions.

The Ministry of Communications said it would temporarily limit internet access, and Iranians said they were struggling to connect using the virtual private networks that allow them to circumvent government censorship of foreign websites and applications.

Some Iranians rallied to protest against Israel and express support for the Government. They held up pictures of generals and scientists who had been killed.

Participants in a pro-government demonstration yesterday in Tehran told a state television journalist that they wanted the harshest response possible against Israel.

“We won’t relent until the complete destruction of Israel,” said a woman in a black-and-white checked scarf that indicates support for Iran’s security forces.

“It’s not a question of revenge. Israel must be wiped off the page of time forever.”

A man surrounded by his wife and daughters said they had come to the rally to show “Israel that my family, all my compatriots and I stand behind our armed forces, and whatever step they take, we will support with our lives and property”.

On the surface, several Iranians said, life in Tehran and other cities carried on as usual during what was a holiday weekend for the nation’s majority Shia Muslims.

People went to coffee shops with friends or did their shopping. Those who didn’t have the day off went to work.

But behind the veneer of normality lay stress and worry - particularly among those old enough to remember Iran’s protracted war with Iraq in the 1980s, when cities were targeted with airstrikes.

Nima, who was a child during the Iran-Iraq War in a city that was heavily bombed, heard the sounds of missiles and air defence systems in Tehran for three or four hours yesterday.

“Tonight in Tehran it’s scarier,” he said.

From his window, he said, he could hear loud booms and what appeared to be a succession of missiles fired from Iranian territory.

Some said the news appeared more frightening to those outside the country; Iranians, they said, had been through far worse.

They also expressed faith in Israel’s ability to precisely target its enemies, and optimism that civilians would largely be spared.

Seventy-eight people were killed and more than 320 wounded in the initial Israeli attacks, Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations said. It was unclear how many were civilians.

Parnia Abbasi, a young female poet, and Mehdi Pouladvand, a competitive equestrian, were killed with their families, Iranian media reported.

But many expressed satisfaction, particularly at the deaths of top officials in the Revolutionary Guard, the military force that plays a major role in domestic repression.

One of the men killed, Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, headed the Revolutionary Guard’s aerospace force, which shot down a Ukraine International Airlines flight in 2020, killing all 176 people on board.

Mehrdad, a 36-year-old man in the southern city of Bandar Abbas, which Israel appeared so far to have spared, said he had not been this happy in 10 years.

In late April, an explosion in a major Bandar Abbas port killed dozens of people, one of several deadly events that Iranians have suffered in recent years.

“We have no fear,” Mehrdad said. “We know that even if there’s a war that involves the [Iranian] people, it’s still better than the situation we are in with this Government.”

Some used the celebration of Eid al-Ghadir to express their glee. Iranians mark the day by buying sweets and gifts for family and friends.

Elham, a 37-year-old woman in the western city of Hamedan, said she saw more Iranians happy and celebrating than during past holidays, and suspected they were using it as cover to celebrate Israel’s attacks.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has attempted to capitalise on that spirit. He urged Iranians to “stand up and let your voices be heard”.

“Israel’s fight is not with you,” he said in an English-language address to the Iranian people. “Our fight is with our common enemy: The murderous regime that both oppresses you and impoverishes you.”

Elham felt numb. She did not believe Israel cared about the Iranian people but rather was preoccupied with Iran’s nuclear programme. She doubted the attacks would bring much change in her own life.

“I’m not scared, nor do I have hope for the future,” she said. “Things are so difficult here and hopelessness has taken over so much that I don’t have any particular emotion. …

“It’s like we’re all at the end of the line. We’re like dead people who appear to move like the living.”