Leela Fadel, Host:
Iran is making good on its pledge to regionalize the war that the US and Israel launched nearly two weeks ago, and it has global implications.
Steve Inskip, Host:
The first statement attributed to Iran’s new supreme leader suggests those implications. Iran State TV – An anchor reads out Mojtaba Khamenei’s statement that Iran will continue to attack its neighbors. He is vowing to maintain leverage by closing the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world’s oil passes. Here in the United States, Americans have noticed high gas prices, and we’re going to check in with four other countries affected by the war.
Fadel: Four of our international correspondents join me now to talk about the uncertainty of the moment – Hadeel Al-Shalchi in Beirut, Aya Batrawi in Dubai, Daniel Estrin in Tel Aviv and Ruth Sherlock on the Turkish-Iranian border. Thank you all for being here.
HADEEL AL-SHALCHI, BYLINE: Thank you.
AYA BATRAVI, BYLINE: Thank you.
RUTH SHERLOCK, BYLINE: Thank you.
DANIEL ESTRIN, BYLINE: Thank you, Leila.
Fadel: Hadeel, I want to start with you in Lebanon because we have again seen this intense nighttime bombing in the southern suburbs of Beirut. what is happening
Al-Shalchi: Right. So last night, Daheeh, a southern suburb of Beirut and considered a Hezbollah stronghold, received widespread evacuation orders and then the bombing began late last night. You know, and the Israeli military is killing Hezbollah operatives and members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. But then Dahieh is also residential. It is crowded. So those strikes are also killing civilians — more than 600 so far, according to officials. It’s not even the fancy part of Beirut. It is not very wealthy, and the number of displaced people is rising dramatically. Like, last week, it was 400,000. A couple of days ago it was 700,000. And then just yesterday, it jumped another lakh to 800,000 people.
Fadel: Where are they going?
Al-Shalchi: Well, people with money are able to afford hotels – some rent apartments but, like, astronomical prices, and the rest are on the streets. In West Beirut, on the beach, people are sleeping on the sidewalks under blankets, making small fires to warm themselves because it’s still quite cold here. I went to one of the shelters at the Sports City Stadium on the outskirts of Beirut and I talked to Mysoon Man (ph). She left Daheeh on foot three or four days before she arrived at the shelter. She used to sleep on the street and now she sleeps in a tent with six other people, including her brother-in-law. This is what she told me.
Mysoon Man: (Speaking non-English language, crying).
Fadel: So she says she can’t wash for prayer. She has no place to be clean.
Al-Shalchi: She said she had not showered for five days because the stadium was not equipped for people to live there. And the Lebanese people now have this suspicion too. For example, East Beirut, where I am, is majority Christian, and no one is taking displaced people here…
Fadel: Yes.
AL-SHALCHI: … because they’re really worried about, you know, being targeted.
Fadel: A completely different scale, but here in the Kurdistan region of Iraq, it’s the same thing, and the concern is around foreigners. So it’s harder and harder for anyone to find a place to stay because they don’t want to be targeted by a retaliatory Iran. And that brings me to you, Daniel. I mean, you are across the border between Lebanon and Israel. We have seen these sabotage attacks in Lebanon, but these rockets are coming across the border and there are also retaliatory attacks from Iran. how is it there
Estrin: Well, last night was really dramatic on the northern border of Lebanon. Hezbollah launched the biggest attack of the war so far – more than a hundred rockets were fired overnight. At the same time, Iran opened fire. There is indeed a lot of support for a war launched by Israel and the US against Iran. But this morning, I’m hearing a crisis of confidence in Israeli leadership, especially from Israelis in the north, very close to Lebanon, this frustration about this expanding war with Hezbollah and people who, well, wait. We – we – didn’t we go to war with Hezbollah last year? These are the people who fled their homes at the beginning of the Gaza war. You know, it’s incredible to hear Hadeel talking about these masses just on the streets and in the stadiums. The Israelis went back to their homes, thinking they were rebuilding their lives, and now suddenly there is a new war. They are sleeping in shelters, safe rooms. And people are asking themselves, well, wait a minute. Is this the new normal? Are we now expecting a war every few years?
FADEL: You’re describing this – early cracks – right? – between people. I mean, it’s life-enhancing. What is the rhythm of life in Tel Aviv after two weeks? It was almost two weeks of missile firing.
Estrin: You know, it’s really surreal. In all the years I’ve lived in this country I never really realized how many bomb shelters there are everywhere. You hear air raid sirens. You hear a loud boom. You sometimes hear really loud missile impacts. We saw craters from where missiles hit Tel Aviv, a metropolis on the Mediterranean coast. No panic, but people are really tired. We fired missiles all night, so people weren’t sleeping, and that was compounded by this general fatigue after 2 1/2 years of war.
Al-Shalchi: Actually, there’s a similar feeling among the Lebanese people who are leaving their homes, because you know they really have a chance to rebuild, the war with Hezbollah and Israel a couple of years ago – they lost their homes. They lost their buildings. But then he was able to rebuild in the last 15 months. And now they say, we don’t know – I can rebuild again. And that causes a lot of anger here too.
Fadel: I’m listening to you and Daniel talking about this exhaustion of war and then trying to survive and rebuild. And this is where I want to bring you in, Aya, because this regional war now — not just between the US, Israel, and Iran — is now spilling over into places we never expected, a place like Dubai that’s known for luxury and stability and safety. I mean, how is it there?
Batrawi: Dubai is built around the idea that you can come here, show off your wealth, have a really good time. People literally come here to bubble away from the rest of the world, from wars, sanctions and that kind of instability. So when we hear the overhead booms, their air defense here is incredibly successful, but the shock is so deep for people because they are not expecting this.
You know, there have been a limited number of deaths from debris in the UAE, and almost all of the people killed have been migrant workers. For the millions of migrant workers in the Gulf, whether from South Asia or the Philippines, many of them are considered essential workers, essential workers. They drive trucks, getting food from ports to grocery stores. You know, I heard Daniel talking about this, like – these air raid sirens. So we don’t have bunkers in Dubai. Again, Dubai was not built for war. And when we get these missile warnings we don’t have much time because we are so close to Iran.
FADEL: And just a reminder, the attacks that are coming are retaliatory attacks from Iran.
Batrawi: Exactly. Lots of retaliatory attacks from Iran. They’re all retaliating because there are U.S. forces in the Gulf, and Iran’s whole, you know, message right now is, I’m going to disrupt the economy of the whole region. We have not seen an attack on any physical banking infrastructure in the Gulf so far. But early in the war, these Amazon data centers were hit here in the UAE and Bahrain. And that disrupted e-banking services for me and millions of people across the UAE – being able to pay your bills online and connect it to your banking. So that certainly raises concerns that it won’t take a mass casualty event to disrupt life here.
FADEL: Ruth, I want to bring you here because we’re talking about the way this region is experiencing this war. It is not in Iran. But you’re on that border, and you’re talking to people who are in the middle of all this, right? The Start – It all started with the US and Israeli attacks on Iran and then spread like wildfire through the region.
Sherlock: Yes.
Fadel: What are you hearing from people coming across that border?
SHERLOCK: I mean, the level of terrorism in this conflict is increasing as the bombings intensify across the country and from Tehran. For example, the other day, I talked to this mother. She had twins and a 6-year-old child, and they ran away from their home in the middle of the night. He would have managed to stay for most of the week, but he said that night, the bombings lit up the sky red, and it was very scary for the safety of his children. He said he held on as best he could. They headed towards the border.
The border crossing we are hearing is pretty scary. We’ve talked to a lot of people who have talked about airstrikes landing near the road as they try to get out. We’ve seen people arrive at the border and shed tears over the last week they’ve lived and finally find relief by being safe. So, you know, this war is hitting government infrastructure, but we’re hearing about so many civilians being killed in the conflict.
FADEL: What are they telling you about this war, that it’s going on? Do you ask for support? Do you hear anger? Like, what are you hearing from people? Because we don’t have voting in Israel like we heard from Daniel.
SHERLOCK: What’s interesting about standing on this border and spending 10 days with people coming out is, aren’t these normal people? And we are asking for very little support from the Iranian government. I think the protests in January were a turning point, people now tell us, look, we can’t imagine continuing to live under that regime. So there were few cheers for this battle. In the beginning, we would see people going to their balconies in Tehran and almost clapping when the bombs fell. But I’ve noticed a real change in approach in the last week, where more and more infrastructure has been hit – they hit this oil depot, and black oil rained down on Tehran – people are continuing to say, you know, what’s going to be left of Iran after this war? So we are really asking Iranians for this dual reality. Most of the people who come across this border do not support the regime or the war against it.
Fadel: That’s Ruth Sherlock on the Turkish-Iranian border, Aya Batrawi in Dubai, Daniel Estrin in Tel Aviv and Hadeel Al-Shalchi in Beirut. Thank you all for your reporting throughout all this and all the dangers you are living with. So be safe.
Estrin: Thank you, Lila.
Al-Shalchi: You are welcome. thank you
Batrawi: Thank you.
Sherlock: Thank you.
(soundbite of Okonsky’s “Vista”)
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