Over 12 days of war in June, more than 1,000 Iranians were killed in Israeli attacks. Most were civilians.
Missiles rained down across Tehran for the first time in decades, shocking residents.
It was an escalation of a decades-long shadow war, now veering in an unpredictable direction.
Israel killed Iran’s top commanders and nuclear scientists. American bombers pounded its nuclear program.
Now a fragile calm has returned. Many Iranians fear it will not last.
Thrust Into the Line of Fire, Iranians Worry About What Comes Next
The professor had a faint air of mystery about him.
A bodyguard trailed behind as the academic came and went from his apartment on a tree-lined street in central Tehran, neighbors said. A taciturn man with a tight gray beard; nobody was quite sure why he needed protection. Everyone knew better than to ask.
Little of that concerned Amirali Khorami, the teenager who lived next door. Obsessed with video games and soccer, Amirali, 14, dreamed of becoming a professional goalkeeper, his family said. He hardly noticed the elderly neighbor who sometimes exchanged pleasantries with his father on the street.
Then, on June 13, in the early hours of the 12-day war between Israel and Iran that later drew in the United States, their fates were inextricably joined. An Israeli bomb crashed into the home of the professor, Dr. Ahmadreza Zolfaghari, who, it turned out, was one of Iran’s leading nuclear scientists.
Not only did the blast kill the scientist and his family, it also tore into surrounding buildings, smashing through wall after wall until it reached the cramped bedroom where Amirali was sleeping and killed him too.
