It’s been more than a week since Israel’s bombing campaign in Iran began, and the two countries have been trading strikes ever since. Panic and confusion in Iran’s capital city, Tehran, remain widespread. Millions of civilians are fearing for their safety as the threat of the United States’ involvement looms large. 

The World’s Shirin Jaafari has been covering the conflict and joined GBH’s All Things Considered host Arun Rath to share her reporting. What follows is a lightly edited transcript of their conversation.

Arun Rath: We’ve seen over the past few days the chaos in Tehran as residents try to figure out what to do. What are the conditions in the capital now, a couple of days after President Trump said everyone should evacuate Tehran?

Shirin Jaafari: Yeah, absolutely. Well, what I can tell you is that many people have left Tehran. The Israeli strikes have continued, driving many of the residents out of the capital. There were long lines of cars heading out of Tehran a few days ago, and there were long lines at the gas stations.

Now, the city is mostly empty. People I talk to say that it’s very quiet and eerier when you go out on the streets. Still, some have stayed. This woman, called Hasti, told me that she would rather stay in her own home than go anywhere else. She says that despite all the airstrikes and everything else that is going on, she can’t imagine leaving her home.

One reason that people have told me about why they stay is that they just don’t know where is safe — they drive out of a city and go elsewhere to another city, [they don’t know] if that place is going to be safe because, as you know, Israel has been striking other places in Iran as well, not just Iran.

Rath: For the people who stay, are they able to get the necessities they need?

Jaafari: So far, it seems like there haven’t been any severe shortages of basic necessities, but that could change as the war continues. It’s been hard to connect with people inside Iran. For the past 24 hours, there’s been a communication blackout imposed by the government.

I did manage to reach a 45-year-old also named Shirin. She told me that she has put together a group of volunteers to help the elderly, the sick, and the disabled people who can’t leave. She says the work is done with the help of her sister and some of her close friends — people she can trust.

What they do is they provide a series of services, depending on what the needs are. If someone, for example, needs help buying groceries, they do that. Someone might need medication; they go out and buy it for them. She told me sometimes people just call her and say, “Listen, we’re too scared. We just need somebody to talk to to help us get through the bombing.” And she does that as well. She just stays with them on the line, tries to calm them down. If she can reach them, go to their home, she will do that as well.

She’s also been getting a lot of calls from Iranians who live outside the country. They have parents or relatives inside Iran, and they can’t reach them. She tries to get news and relay news about them.

Rath: You mentioned that the government imposed a communications blackout. Why is that?

Jaafari: Yeah, this has been ongoing for the past 24 hours or so, and as I said, many Iranians who live outside the country haven’t been able to reach their loved ones. This is potentially also life-threatening because people inside the country can’t receive the evacuation orders put out by the Isreali Defense Force.

For example, the military sent out an alert warning people living near a heavy water reactor site to leave. There was no way for people living there to see that message. It was posted on X.

The Iranian government says that the blackout is for security reasons, and this is a wartime situation. But they don’t give any more explanations [as to] why they have imposed this blackout.

Rath: What about that heavy water reactor? Where is that, and what is its significance?

Jaafari: So, this is the Arak heavy-water reactor. It’s about 150 miles southwest of Tehran. This facility can produce plutonium, which can be used to make an atomic bomb, but this site was never active. In fact, the UN nuclear watchdog said that this site was not in operation — it didn’t contain any nuclear material — and so there was no danger to the public. Iran’s state TV also said the same thing.

But, of course, we have to wait for more confirmation on this once the war is over, for experts to access the site and do an assessment.