I have been living in Iran for 45 years and have gone through more wars than anyone should experience. But this time, seeing everything from afar, it’s different. It’s much harder.

It all started in 1987. I was 8 years old when I heard the first explosion. I remember that winter exactly: windows vibrating, my mother screaming, the paralyzing fear. At school, they gave us plastic grenade-shaped piggy banks to collect money for the soldiers. We were kids, you know? Just children writing letters to soldiers who probably would never return.

My Uncle Essi was shot in the early days. My cousin Behrouz returned from the war psychologically shattered. He still carries that with him. But the moment I will never forget was at the end of January 88. We were in the yard of our old house in Tehran when a piece of missile fell meters from us. A piece of red metal that almost killed us. My mother, who was always strong, couldn’t take it anymore at that moment. We left Tehran.

Decades passed. I thought the worst was behind us.

But on October 26, 2024, I woke up to explosions. Israel was attacking Iran again. From that morning, for 12 consecutive days, our house trembled. The government cut off the internet. My partner Mahsa, the cats, and I got used to the noise from the second day. We slept in shifts, glued to our phones, trying to stay informed. We believed we could endure it because we had lived through it before. But it was not the same. This time, it was different.

And then came what happened 50 days ago. The brutal repression against protesters in the streets. People being killed. Then, this Saturday, more attacks. I read that in Minab, in the south, they attacked a girls’ school next to a military base. Dozens of minors killed. The same grenades that we were given as toys when we were children now fall on other children.

I am outside Iran now, in Catalonia. But following the news from here is devastating. I can’t stop thinking about all those people inside, unable to do anything. The Iranian people are not to blame. First, they were massacred by their own government 50 days ago. Now they are being bombed by foreign missiles. What fault do they have?

I have lived through all the wars in Iran. But this one, seen from outside, is the hardest I have experienced. Maybe because now I know exactly what it means. And I can do nothing about it.