Iranian state media on Sunday broadcast revolutionary songs alongside footage of people celebrating its “revenge” drone and missile strikes on Israel.
State television aired celebratory scenes in several cities, showing crowds – and even Iranian MPs gathered in the parliamentary chamber – chanting “Death to Israel”.
“I’m very, very happy,” said one man on a state broadcast. “I’m proud of being an Iranian...I was counting down for it,” said another.
But ordinary Iranians that spoke to The Telegraph painted a very different picture amid fears of how Israel will respond.
Footage obtained by The Telegraph showed lengthy queues stretching for hundreds of metres outside petrol stations as people rushed to make emergency preparations.
Highways leading out of Tehran were gridlocked with traffic as many began to evacuate, the only way out as the city’s Mehrabad airport will remain closed until Monday morning.
Iranians in the central city of Qom, home to Fordow, the site of an underground uranium enrichment facility located at a former Iranian military base – and a potential target for Israeli retaliation – residents are bunkering down for an attack.