Under the bombs and the blockade: Iran’s civilians bear the weight of a widening war

More than six months after the US-Israel war on Iran began with the assassination of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, the conflict has settled into a grinding cycle of strikes and retaliation that is crushing ordinary Iranian families. While the political narrative in Washington and Tehran focuses on oil tankers and missile exchanges, the daily reality for the country’s 90 million people is a collapsing economy, psychological exhaustion, and a sense that the pre-war life will never return.

Khadijeh Bandari, a 28-year-old fisherwoman from Hengam Island in the Persian Gulf, told Al Jazeera how her family’s guesthouse, fishing business and seaside restaurant — all built on tourism and daily catch — evaporated after the first bombs fell on February 28. “The sea belongs to us women just as much as it belongs to men,” she recalled. Now, she joins the millions of Iranians who no longer know when their next good day will come (Source 7).

The humanitarian toll is mounting. On September 3, Iran’s health minister reported that 18 civilians, including two children, had been killed in US airstrikes (Source 8). The attacks have not been limited to military targets: on September 1, Iranian state media announced “numerous” US strikes on territory, and the following day, Tehran retaliated by striking US assets in Gulf neighbours and Jordan (Source 5, Source 6). On September 3, an Iranian drone damaged a residential building in Kuwait City, an escalation that brought the war directly to a non-belligerent country (Source 9).

The economic backbone of the region — the Strait of Hormuz — is all but paralysed. Data from Kpler cited by Al Jazeera on September 8 showed that an average of just 10 commodity ships per day transited the strait over the prior ten days, the lowest level since May. Qatar warned that the interruption risks an “industrial catastrophe” (Source 12). Tehran has announced plans for a new Hormuz shipping route but has provided few operational details (Source 11). Meanwhile, Iran’s Petroleum Minister Mohsen Paknejad said on September 4 that the oil industry is “circumventing” the US blockade but called the situation “difficult” (Source 10).

The political landscape remains deadlocked. US President Donald Trump has vowed to strike Iran “hard” and, on September 5, threatened to target Iran’s underground military base, Pickaxe Mountain “very soon” (Source 1). The US has ruled out talks until Iran stops attacking shipping (Source 10). Iran, for its part, has signalled readiness for regional dialogue — its foreign ministry said on September 10 it is open to talks with regional nations to “foster mutual trust” — while simultaneously warning of heavier retaliation for any new attacks (Source 14, Source 11).

For Khadijeh Bandari and her three-year-old son Keyhan, the war is not a diplomatic abstraction. “We had an ordinary life,” she said. The bombs have made sure that ordinary life is over.

This article is based on reporting from Al Jazeera and other sources cited above.