Iranians officials called on young people to form human chains around the country’s power plants and people in Tehran stocked up on basic provisions, as the clock ticked down on Donald Trump’s deadline to open the strait of Hormuz or face massive strikes on civilian infrastructure.
Iranian media showed people gathering outside electricity stations, waving Iranian flags and holding up banners, including at the country’s largest power plant, near Tehran, and in Tabriz in the north-west. In Dezful in the south-west, people gathered on a bridge said to be 1,700 years old.
Iran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, said 14 million people had signed up in a voluntary drive to fight for their country and “declared their readiness to sacrifice their lives in defence of Iran”.
The preparations came as the US president threatened that “a whole civilization will die tonight”.
The US and Israel carried out waves of preparatory strikes that appeared to knock off course the chances of a last-minute ceasefire deal ahead of Trump’s 8pm ET deadline for Iran to reopen the strait.
Attacks on civilian infrastructure amount to war crimes, legal experts say. Tuesday’s airstrikes may have been aimed at pressuring Iran to cut a deal, but the impact appeared to harden resolve within the regime.
Alireza Rahimi, identified by Iranian state television as the secretary of the Supreme Council of Youth and Adolescents, issued a video message in a newscast calling on young people of the Islamic Republic to form human chains around power plants in the country.
“I invite all young people, athletes, artists, students and university students and their professors,” he said.
He asked them to gather on “Tuesday at 2 pm around the power plants that are our national assets and capital, regardless of any taste or political viewpoint, [that] belong to the future of Iran and to the Iranian youth”.
Iran has formed human-chain demonstrations, also known as human shields, in the past around its nuclear sites at times of heightened tensions with the west.
A man in Tehran said his household had collected basic necessities and equipment to charge their mobile phones, in preparation to flee the capital if necessary.
“No good can come out of this, since obviously the US and Israel don’t give a damn about Iranian people,” he said. “They are just following their own agenda.”
Though Trump said there was still time for a deal, Tuesday’s bombardment further weakened those within the Iranian establishment pushing for a settlement, making the hardliners stronger, diplomats mediating the talks said. But, the indirect negotiations were continuing, largely by passing messages through Pakistan, they said.
The intermediaries said they feared that Israel was bombing the chances of reaching an agreement, while dealing with hotheads in Tehran, and a totally unpredictable US president, made it tough to find the middle ground needed for a diplomatic solution.
Airstrikes on Iran hit the railways, the oil export terminal of Kharg Island, bridges and a petrochemicals complex. In response, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards warned that “restraint is over”.
“We will do something with the infrastructure of America and its partners that will deprive America and its allies of oil and gas in the region for years,” the statement said.
Iran is seeking an end to the war, not just a ceasefire deal, believing that the US and Israel could restart attacks after a few months. Tehran does not want to end up like Gaza or Lebanon, which Israel continues to bomb at will.
Pakistan’s military said that Iran’s strike on an industrial complex on Tuesday in the eastern city of Jubail in Saudi Arabia also damaged the talks, calling it “an unnecessary escalation which spoils sincere efforts to resolve the conflict through peaceful means”. Riyadh has threatened to enter the war if attacks continue.
The Associated Press contributed to the report
