Originally published on The Public Source on August 14, 2025.
On the morning of Thursday, June 12, Tehran moved to its familiar rhythms. Students crammed for finals in packed cafés and bookshops. People strolled down the streets, enjoying the last days of the mild spring weather before the heat of summer set in. Thursday afternoon marks the start of the Iranian weekend, and Tehranis usually have plans for family dinners or parties with friends in the evening.
In the early hours of Friday morning, the sounds of explosions tore through the city, jolting its 10 million residents awake. In her apartment in the city center, Golnar checked the news: Israel had launched a surprise attack on Iran. Her worst nightmare had come to pass. “This is war,” she told herself.
At first, many hoped it would be a one-off attack, a single strike, like Israel’s bombing of Iran last year. But the attacks continued. By Day 2, car bombs were exploding downtown, and people began to flee. On Day 3, Trump told residents of Tehran to evacuate. Thousands more decided to leave, but many had no way out.
Golnar stayed. She feared that her elderly mother would suffer if they left and wasn’t sure where they would go. So she stayed in the city and started helping others who stayed behind. “I realized no one was coming to save us. We needed to save ourselves,” she said from her home in Tehran. “So we started taking action.”
Networks of Survival
Golnar is part of a mutual aid network that activated when the war started. The group’s first task was organizing travel for people desperate for a way out of Tehran. Thousands of students from other parts of the country were stranded in the capital, as all flights had been cancelled and train and bus tickets were hard to come by. Golnar began coordinating with a group of students to fill empty seats in private cars headed to other provinces. Within days, her mutual aid network had ballooned to 600 people in different Telegram groups with members across the country.
As the war dragged on, members started asking whether anyone had relatives in Tehran who needed to be checked on. Many Iranians who had emigrated had parents who were alone and terrified of leaving their homes. Golnar and other volunteers started traveling across the city, delivering groceries and securing rides for people trying to flee. What would have been a simple errand in ordinary times became a death-defying act of solidarity.
On Day 6, Golnar was tasked with picking up two elderly women and driving them to the train station. They had family in Iran’s second-largest city, Mashhad, a 12-hour train ride to the east. Their families had already paid for their tickets, but the women were too afraid to leave their homes.
The first woman she picked up was distraught. She hadn’t stepped outside in a month and needed to be moved after her caretaker fled the city. Stuck at home as the city emptied around her, she was overwhelmed and sinking into depression.
“When she saw me, she looked at me with grief in her eyes,” Golnar recalled. “She told me, ‘My dear girl, pray that I die soon, so I won’t have to see what awaits my country,’ and started crying.”
The second woman was in better spirits, and as they drove south together, the mood in the car lifted until they neared Shush Square in south Tehran and heard a bomb dropping nearby.
What would have been a simple errand in ordinary times became a death-defying act of solidarity.
“They started yelling, ‘Stop! Stop!’” Golnar recounted. “I pulled into the first corner I could find. People were running everywhere, confused and stunned.” The three of them huddled on the floor of the car. After a while, they sat up to catch their breath and drink some water.
“They were terrified, and so was I,” she said. “One of them asked, ‘What do you think will happen? Will I live to see my children?’ I didn’t know what to say. I tried to give her hope.”
They eventually made it to the train station. Golnar then headed to feed the cats of friends who had left the city. When she finally returned home, she learned that an Israeli drone strike had hit a Red Crescent ambulance, killing three paramedics. One was a former colleague of hers, a discovery that brought into sharp focus the dangers she had braved in her own work.
Mutual Aid Across Crises
Golnar’s mutual aid network was formed during the COVID-19 pandemic to assist those who were isolated or ill. The group, which consisted of around 50 to 60 individuals, became less active as the pandemic waned, but was spurred back to action in 2021 when the US military withdrew from Afghanistan and the Taliban regained control. Nearly one million Afghans fled to Iran and the network jumped back into action. They organized food and clothing drives for those stranded in camps near the border and helped new arrivals settle into their new homes in Tehran.
When Israel launched a military attack on Iran, the network reactivated once more. Its members were just some of the thousands across Iran who helped their neighbors and strangers.
To escape the bombing, many Iranians fled to the northern Caspian coast. There, locals welcomed the displaced with signs offering free accommodation. Under normal circumstances, Tehranis clog the roads during holidays, and their summer homes are blamed for eroding the area’s forested beauty, stoking local resentment. But during the war, that resentment gave way to generosity. Many northerners gave freely or offered steep discounts on goods, services, and even fuel. One shop owner charged only the price of goods, refusing to profit from people’s displacement.
By helping the displaced, northerners risked becoming targets themselves. At least one town was bombed in an Israeli attack targeting a scientist who had fled Tehran with his family. The strike killed more than a dozen people and left a massive crater where homes once stood.
If Israel sought to divide Iranians or turn them against each other, it undoubtedly failed. Instead, people rallied together. Doctors made house visits to patients unable to leave their homes and wrote prescriptions for those who ran out of medication. Restaurants and supermarkets offered free food and water to the displaced.
Many acts were spontaneous. Others, like Golnar’s, were built on already-existing mutual aid networks that are activated and expanded in times of crisis.
The group’s pre-existing connections made them aware of potential crisis zones vulnerable due to their isolation. Throughout the war, Israeli bombs repeatedly struck sites around Kahrizak, a working-class suburb wedged between gas depots and industrial and military complexes in the desert plains south of Tehran. Members of Golnar’s network visited the Kahrizak Elderly and Disabled People’s Home, where many residents were in shock and needed medical attention. The area is also home to a major orphanage, so volunteers also brought supplies like diapers and water to help overwhelmed staff members who refused to leave despite the danger and lack of institutional support.
If Israel sought to divide Iranians or turn them against each other, it undoubtedly failed. Instead, people rallied together.
“For me, this feeling that we had suddenly become so bi-panah — so helpless and without a refuge — forced us all to act,” Golnar said. “We felt equally trapped in the suffering we were experiencing. We knew that the only way to defeat that sense of helplessness was by coming to each other’s aid.”
“We’re Sitting Here in Gas Masks Eating Watermelon”
Iran has a diaspora of 4 to 5 million people spread around the world. When Israel attacked their homeland, many watched in horror, unable to do anything. For Iranian-Americans, the feeling was even worse. Their tax dollars were helping pay for the onslaught. Trump had vocally supported the aggression before directly joining the bombing campaign.
The American war on Iran didn’t start in June. For decades, US sanctions have ravaged the country’s economy, causing the currency to lose 99 percent of its value over the last 15 years. The sanctions have not only robbed Iranians of their savings, but they have also caused shortages of life-saving medication and treatments, leading to thousands of preventable deaths. Iranian-Americans are legally barred from sending money home without a rarely granted permit from the US State Department following a tedious process. Fundraising for humanitarian purposes, establishing organizations to provide relief, creating bail funds for Iranian political prisoners and protesters, and supporting Iranian journalists providing critical reporting are also off-limits. Sanctions cut off Iranians in the diaspora from their families, as well as from political and social movements in Iran.
As the Israeli bombings escalated, many Iranians were completely cut off from loved ones as internet and telephone signals started shutting down.
Israel destroyed at least one telecommunications tower and, not long after, the Iranian government shut down internet access and began filtering mobile signals. Authorities said the measures were necessary to prevent Mossad agents inside the country from launching remotely operated kamikaze drone attacks, which had killed many people. Israel had already proudly confirmed the existence of a Mossad spy network.
For millions of Iranians, the shutdown created a sense of fear and foreboding. Loved ones could no longer check in on each other. Elderly parents had no one to talk to or be comforted by.
But some, like Arash, an IT worker in his 40s, managed to stay online.
His roommate, who had worked for an international company, had bought a Starlink device before leaving the country. Initially, Arash ignored it. “I hate Elon Musk,” he said bluntly. But once the war started and domestic internet access collapsed, he turned it on. The device bypasses local internet providers by connecting to a satellite internet network and is much faster than his provider’s.
On Day 5 of the war, Arash woke up and realized that almost no one else he knew in Iran was online. “It was crazy, like I was alone in the darkness,” he said. “And I realized the internet must be shut off. I messaged a few WhatsApp groups I’m in with friends who live abroad, and I asked if anyone wanted me to get messages to loved ones inside Iran.”
Requests flooded in, first in the dozens, then in the hundreds. Desperate for news, people gave Arash the phone numbers of elderly parents, aunts, cousins, and friends. Arash started calling them, one by one.
“People were tense. Everyone I called was confused about who I was and what I wanted. I had to do this long introduction every time: ‘Do you know so-and-so? I am friends with so-and-so, and they met your so-and-so in Boston. Once I clarified why I’m calling them, we had nice conversations. They would usually share, ‘We’re worried about them because they’re so worried about us. Tell them not to worry! Tell them we’re fine!’”
In some cases, Arash felt he had to exaggerate to reassure worried family members.
“I spoke to one woman’s mom who was very old and clearly very scared. She got so happy when she heard I was calling on behalf of her daughter. She said over and over, ‘Tell my daughter I’m okay.’ I could tell she wasn’t, but I followed her wishes. When I got on the phone with her daughter, I said, ‘Your mom is great! She’s having tea and doing perfectly fine.’ And then I heard her daughter sigh in relief.”
Arash did this several days in a row, connecting hundreds of people inside and outside of Iran. He said that he would wake up, start calling, and by the time he finished, six to seven hours would’ve passed, and he would realize he’d forgotten to eat.
“Someone called me terrified because they heard Israel had hit a nuclear site near the city where his family lived,” Arash recalled. The man gave him strict instructions to tell the family to close the windows and make sure they wore gas masks in case there was radioactive contamination. “When I called his dad, he laughed and said: ‘Tell him we’re fine and we’re all sitting here at home eating watermelon. If you want, tell him we’re eating watermelon through the gas masks.’”
Over several days, Arash spoke with hundreds of people. “There was this charkhesh-e negaraani — this rotating circle of worries — where everyone outside was worried about everyone inside, and vice versa. And I was there in the middle, shuttling back and forth between them.”
“There was this charkhesh-e negaraani — this rotating circle of worries — where everyone outside was worried about everyone inside, and vice versa.” —Arash, IT worker
The care ordinary Iranians showed each other took many forms. Mehdi Khajavi, a Tehran doctor, described visiting a bakery that was running out of bread. They only had 25 loaves, but 10 people had lined up, hoping to stock up for the coming days.
“The first person in line wanted 15 loaves, the second wanted 10, and the third wanted five.” When it became clear that there wasn’t enough for everybody, the first person said they didn’t want any bread, and the second and third also said they could go without it. “So we divided the bread between all of us standing there. And the baker started crying and came and kissed every one of us.”
Khajavi said he last witnessed such scenes during the 1980s Iran-Iraq War. That period is commemorated officially for the heroism of soldiers who defended the country. But in most Iranians’ memories, it is closely tied to a sense of coming together: people looked out for their neighbors and shared what little they had, tied together by a sense of common purpose.
From War Relief to Border Solidarity
Twelve days after it started, Israel’s direct military campaign against Iran came to an abrupt end. Over 1,000 Iranians were killed, and tens of thousands were injured. Residents of Iran were at last able to breathe a sigh of relief even as they surveyed the devastation on every corner. And the acts of solidarity continued. As thousands contended with destroyed apartments and workplaces, architectural firms in Tehran offered to help rebuild homes free of charge. The social solidarity and mutual aid networks strengthened through the war continued, ready to activate again when the next crisis erupts.
But for some, the suffering did not end when the bombs stopped falling as authorities started cracking down on dissent and expanding the search for suspected infiltrators. Iran is home to four to five million Afghans, who share a language and culture with Iranians, but had to flee their homeland because of war, sanctions, and a tyrannical government. Even though many Afghans have lived and worked in Iran for generations, the vast majority remain undocumented and without legal protections. They are even barred from opening a bank account and signing a lease, so they have to rely on an Iranian to sign on their behalf. Since early this year, the Iranian government has been trying to deport undocumented Afghans. After the war, it ramped up its efforts and deported half a million Afghans in just two weeks.
Some were sent letters and told to self-deport; others were arrested at checkpoints and sent straight to the border, where they were held in camps in 50°C heat. Many had to wait several days for rides; others had no one to receive them on the other side. Single women are in an especially perilous position: Afghan authorities refuse to allow them to enter without a male guardian, leaving many stuck in limbo. And because Iranian authorities failed to prepare provisions for the deportees, there were many deaths from heatstroke, including a 60-year-old man seized at a checkpoint.
Iranian authorities justified the deportations by pointing to several cases of Afghan collaborators working for Israel, but critics note that far more Iranians have been accused of espionage and that blaming Afghans serves as a distraction from the government’s own intelligence failures.
Confronted with the government’s actions against the Afghan “enemy within,” Golnar’s mutual aid network redirected its efforts to support Afghans. Volunteers collected money and headed to the border, where they brought food, water, and supplies like diapers and menstrual pads for deportees. Many volunteers are former political prisoners, like Golnar herself. They also write reports from the border, sending updates to journalists covering the deadly consequences of government policies. While mainstream media debates the upsides of mass deportation (Will the “departure of Afghans” be an “opportunity” for the rental market? asks one headline), journalists at the border risk arrest for reporting on the unfolding crisis.
Confronted with the government’s actions against the Afghan “enemy within,” Golnar’s mutual aid network redirected its efforts to support Afghans.
Mutual aid volunteers rely on critical help from locals in the border province of Sistan and Baluchistan, where some camps are located. Over the years, local charities, organizations, and activists have built networks to provide food and aid to refugees coming from Afghanistan, and they are reactivating them as Afghans head in the other direction. On the other side of the border, Afghan mutual aid networks receiving deportees coordinate food, water, and transportation home.
During the war, people from the provinces came to Tehran’s aid. Today, it is Iran’s most marginalized residents who are suffering, and activists in the center and periphery alike are mobilizing to support them.
These mutual aid networks function below the surface, building bridges that connect Iranian cities to the provinces and Iranian people to Afghans both in Iran and across the border. They have become lifelines in a country where independent organizing is tightly controlled. Mutual aid offers a way to act collectively and politically, under the radar, and is a practice of imagination. These acts of refusal to accept isolation and abandonment keep alive the possibility of a world defined not by war or repression, but by mutual care and solidarity.
The full names of the individuals in this story have been withheld for their privacy and security.