‘My life is buried here’: Iranian man whose 12 family members were killed

Hamed Mirzaei lost 12 members of his family in an attack on a residential building in Tehran. Among those killed was his wife, 26-year-old Mohadeseh. The young couple had been planning to start a family.

He describes how the United States-Israeli attack on his home on March 9, 2026, changed his life in this first-person account, shared with Al Jazeera:

“Seven months have passed since the bombing. Even now, on many days, when I come to my senses, I find myself back at my destroyed home, searching for my loved ones.

“My grandfather and my father’s uncle built the house that was hit. They divided its apartments among their children. A year ago, when I got married, my wife and I moved into one of the apartments in the same building. We were just beginning to prepare for a child. We were young, with our whole lives ahead of us. Then the bombing happened.

“March 9 was a Monday. At about 1:00 in the afternoon, I left home to check in at work. At 2:30 pm, my wife messaged me, asking me to buy her some headache medicine on my way back. I called her to ask which medicine she wanted, but her phone was busy. We were expecting guests at home, so I called our guest’s phone. That line was busy, too. I hung up, intending to call my wife again.

“I was five minutes from home when I suddenly heard a whistling sound. The first missile had just struck.

“The ground shook beneath my feet from the force of the explosion. With my phone still in my hand, I called my wife again, but her phone was unreachable. I began calling my family members, my grandfather, my father, my mother. All their phones were unreachable.

“Even so, I thought our home had not been hit. I kept telling myself it was impossible that they had struck our house. I thought perhaps a missile had hit somewhere else in our neighbourhood. In those moments, all I wanted was to get home and see that the house was still standing.

“In those same minutes, five more missiles struck our home.

“When I arrived, I saw that everyone in the neighbourhood had come out of their homes, but I still couldn’t bring myself to step into the street. It never even crossed my mind that those missiles could have hit our house. But they had. Even from a distance, it was clear that all that remained of the house was its skeleton.

“When I reached it, everything was burning. All I could think about was getting to the second floor and finding my wife, but the staircase was gone. Several neighbours from the first floor were trapped beneath the rubble. The Red Crescent helped rescue them.

“I thought that if they kept searching, perhaps they would find my family alive somewhere beneath the debris, too. But they didn’t. No one was found that hour. Nor in the hours that followed. By nightfall, no one else had been found in the building. Twelve members of my family were missing, and I still couldn’t bring myself to leave.

“That night, the next day, the day after that, and every day following the attack, I returned to my home. For 20 days, I searched through the rubble and the remnants of the missiles and explosions for my loved ones. There was nothing left.

“My wife was killed. My sister-in-law, who had been a guest in our home, was killed. My father and mother, my grandfather and grandmother, my aunt’s husband and her daughter, my uncle, my father’s cousin, his wife and their child were all killed. Twelve members of my family died in the attack, and people ask me how I am.

“I miss them. I miss them more with every passing day. At first, I thought that perhaps, with time, our grief would ease and we would find some peace. But we haven’t. As each day passes, I feel worse.

“I was an only child, and I always thought that, although I had no brothers or sisters, I had a large family with whom I would grow old. All my life, the members of our extended family had lived together, side by side. Now all those people, and all the love that flowed through our family, have vanished.

“I am the only one left. There is no one else from my family. I am utterly alone.

“I am living proof for anyone who still believes that war can lead to a good outcome. Anyone who thinks war is good should look at what has happened to me and ask themselves: ‘What, in any of this, is good?’

“The building where I was born, the building where my father was born, the building where I had hoped my child would be born, all of it was destroyed in a fraction of a second. My home and my family were wiped out together. And when I miss them, I truly don’t know where to turn or what to look at.

“Seven months have passed since the day they destroyed our home, and every day, when I wake up, I come here to look at the ruins. I cannot bring myself to leave this place. I feel as though my life is buried here, and I return every day, hoping I might find some piece of it. But there is nothing left.

“When someone asks me what I am thinking or how I feel, I cannot answer. Everything I have ever done in my life was for the happiness of my family. Now I no longer have a family for whom I can do anything.

“Every day, I ask myself: ‘Why do I keep going?’ I have no answer.

“The difference between me and my family, who were killed, is that they were buried beneath the rubble, while I am still walking around. Other than that, I am just as dead as they are. The only difference is that my name is not included among the dead.”