Chief international correspondent
In the heart of the Iranian capital, the Boof cafe serves up refreshing cold drinks on a hot summer’s day.
They must be the most distinctive iced Americano coffees in this city – the cafe sits in a leafy corner of the long-shuttered US embassy.
Its high cement walls have been plastered with anti-American murals ever since Washington severed relations with Tehran in the wake of the 1979 Iranian revolution and the hostage crisis – which still cast a long shadow over this tortuous relationship.
Inside the charming Boof cafe, Amir the barista says he’d like relations to improve between America and Iran.
“US sanctions hurt our businesses and make it hard for us to travel around the world,” he reflects as he pours another iced coffee behind a jaunty wooden sign – “Keep calm and drink coffee.”
Only two tables are occupied – one by a woman covered up in a long black veil, another by a woman in blue jeans with long flowing hair, flouting the rules on what women should wear as she cuddles with her boyfriend.
It’s a small snapshot of this capital as it confronts its deeply uncertain future.
“The Americans have been opposing the Islamic Republic of Iran from the very beginning”, declared Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in his recorded speech broadcast on Thursday from the IRIB state TV compound a short drive away.
“At its core, it has always been about one thing: they want us to surrender,” went on the 86-year Ayatollah, said to have taken shelter in a bunker aer Israel unleashed its unprecedented wave of strikes targeting Iran’s nuclear and missile sites and assassinating senior commanders and scientists.
We watched his speech, his first since President Donald Trump suddenly announced a ceasefire on Tuesday, on a small TV in the only office still intact in a vast section of the IRIB compound – all that’s le is a charred skeleton of steel.
When an Israeli bomb slammed into this complex on 16 June, a raging fire swept through the main studio which would have aired the supreme leader’s address. Now it’s just ash.
You can still taste its acrid smell; all the TV equipment – cameras, lights, tripods – are tangles of twisted metal. A crunching glass carpet covers the ground.
Israel said it targeted the propaganda arm of the Islamic Republic, accusing it of concealing a military operation within – a charge its journalists rejected.
Its gaping shell seems to symbolise this darkest of times for Iran.
You can also see it in the city’s hospitals, which are still treating Iranians injured in Israel’s 12-day war.
“I am scared they might attack again, ” Ashraf Barghi tells me when we meet in the emergency department of the Taleghani General hospital where she works as head nurse.
“We don’t trust this war has ended” she says, in a remark reflecting the palpable worry we’ve heard from so many people in this city.
When Israel bombed the threshold of the nearby Evin prison on 23 June, the casualties, both soldiers and civilians, were rushed into Nurse Barghi’s emergency ward.
“The injuries were the worst I’ve treated in my 32 years as nurse, even worse than what I saw in the Iran-Iraq war in the 80s,” she recounts, still visibly distressed.
The strike on the notorious prison where Iran detains most of its political prisoners was described by Israel as “symbolic”.
It seemed to reinforce Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s repeated message to Iranians to “stand up for their freedom”.
“Israel says it only hit military and nuclear prison but it’s all lies,” insists Morteza from his hospital bed. He had been at work in the prison’s transport department when the missile slammed into the building. He shows us his injuries in both arms and his backside.
In the ward next door, soldiers are being cared for, but we’re not allowed to enter there.
Across this sprawling metropolis, Iranians are counting the cost of this confrontation. In its latest tally, the government’s health ministry recorded 627 people killed and nearly 5,000 injured.
Tehran is slowly returning to life and resuming its old rhythms, at least on the surface. Its infamous traffic is starting to fill its soaring highways and pretty tree-lined side streets.
Shops in its beautiful bazaars are opening again as people return to a city they fled to escape the bombs. Israel’s intense 12-day military operation, coupled with the US’s attacks on Iran’s main nuclear sites, has le so many shaken.
“They weren’t good days, ” says Mina, a young woman who immediately breaks down as she tries to explain her sadness. “It’s so heart-breaking, ” she tells me through her tears. “We tried so hard to have a better life but we can’t see any future these days.”
We met on the grounds of the soaring white marble Azadi tower, one of Tehran’s most iconic landmarks. A large crowd milling on a warm summer’s evening swayed to the strains of much-loved patriotic songs in an open air concert of the Tehran Symphony Orchestra. It was meant to bring some calm to a city still on edge.
Supporters and critics of Iran’s clerical rulers mingled, drawn together by shared worry about their country’s future.
“They have to hear what people say,” insists Ali Reza when I ask him what advice he would give to his government. “We want greater freedoms, that’s all I will say.”
Despite rules and restrictions which have long governed their lives, Iranians do speak their minds as they wait for the next steps by their rulers, and leaders in Washington and beyond, which carry such consequences for their lives.
Lyse Doucet is being allowed to report in Iran on condition that none of her reports are used on the BBC’s Persian service. This law from Iranian authorities applies to all international media agencies operating in Iran.
