Seven months after a devastating missile strike destroyed his multi-generation family home in Tehran, Hamed Mirzaei remains bound to the ruins where twelve of his relatives perished. Among those killed in the March 9, 2026, attack was his 26-year-old wife, Mohadeseh, with whom he had recently moved into the building and was beginning to plan for a family.
Built by his grandfather and father’s uncle, the residential structure had long housed members of his extended family side by side. Mirzaei, an only child who grew up surrounded by relatives, left for work at around 1:00 p.m. on that Monday. At 2:30 p.m., his wife messaged him asking for headache medicine on his way back. When he tried calling her and then a guest staying at the home, both lines were busy. Five minutes from home, he heard a whistling sound as the first missile struck.
The ground shook violently. Mirzaei frantically attempted to call his wife, parents, and grandfather, but all their phones were unreachable. Clinging to disbelief, he assumed another part of the neighborhood had been hit. Moments later, five more missiles slammed into his family’s property. Arriving on the scene, he found the building reduced to a charred skeleton with its staircase obliterated. Red Crescent workers rescued trapped first-floor neighbors, but no family members were found that day or in the harrowing hours and weeks that followed.
For 20 days, Mirzaei searched through the rubble for any trace of his loved ones. The strike claimed the lives of his wife, his father and mother, his grandfather and grandmother, his sister-in-law who was visiting as a guest, an aunt’s husband and daughter, an uncle, and a father’s cousin alongside his wife and child. In total, twelve family members died, leaving Mirzaei entirely alone.
Reflecting on the catastrophe, Mirzaei challenges those who argue that war can achieve positive outcomes. The building where he was born, where his father was born, and where he hoped his own child would enter the world was eradicated in seconds. Seven months later, he visits the ruins daily, searching for a fragment of his former life and stating that, apart from still walking, he feels as dead as those buried beneath the debris.
