TEHRAN - Iranian citizens are celebrating the ancient Nowruz (the Persian New Year) while their country is under an illegal and borderless war by the United States and Israel.

In the weeks and days leading to Nowruz, the families are filled with joy and happiness. Families buy gifts for their loved ones, especially children who impatiently wait for the arrival of Nowruz. Marketeers are also happy when they see a sea of shoppers.  

In the Persian culture, Nowruz, which starts with the advent of spring, people also wish success for each other and their country as well. Literally speaking, Nowruz has always been associated with delight, joy, love, rebirth and start of a new life.

However, this year Nowruz is quite different. Neither the shops are busy in big cities with shoppers nor people are in a good state of mind. Every moment people are waiting fighter jets from Israel and the U.S. drop bombs on residential houses, key infrastructures, such as airports, oil and gas facilities, or turn some individuals, including citizens, into pieces.

Concurrent with arrival of Nowruz, which is synonymous with the rebirth of nature, families sit together to celebrate the occasion. However, several thousands of people are grieving the loss of their loved ones in this sudden, unexpected and unwarranted war on their country. 

It is just enough to think of those families whose little daughters were buried under rubble in a school in Minab in the U.S. airstrikes or those whose sons had voyaged to the Indian Ocean to participate in a friendly naval drill but unexpectedly were targeted by a U.S. submarine while they were returning home. 

These tragic and man-made deaths have affected tens of millions of people in and outside Iran. 
The people’s sympathy with the bereaved families is exemplification of the words of the 13th-century Persian poet Saadi Shirazi that says:
 
Human beings are members of a whole,

In creation of one essence and soul.

If one member is afflicted with pain,

Other members uneasy will remain.

If you’ve no sympathy for human pain,

The name of human you cannot retain!

Moreover, the war has disrupted the lives of millions of people across the country. Hundreds of thousands have lost their jobs, some private businesses have been closed, some shops remain closed and hundreds of thousands have gone bankrupt.  Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, have also been internally displaced.   

Prior to the start of the joint U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, millions of people were seriously grappling with the economic fallouts of the Washington-led economic sanctions against Iran.  This war has rubbed salt into the wound.

Every year, during Nowruz, holidaymakers, especially those with lesser incomes, were using schools and certain other public places like sports stadiums. But the Israeli warplanes are raining missiles on schools and public complexes with a special focus.
Even during Saddam Hussein’s eight-year war against Iran in the 1980s, people in cities who were far from the war fronts were not so worried as they are now, even that dictator also bombarded residential areas in certain cities.

There are instances that citizens who have gone to shopping centers to buy certain things in preparation for Nowruz have been injured as sports complexes or other centers nearby have been struck with missiles. 

Even those families who are travelling between cities to visit their relatives don’t have a feeling of safety in the roads.
 
Officials in Israel and the U.S. are so filled with hatred of Iran that they don’t even stop their air raids on Iran for a few days as people are celebrating their New Year. 

Even a few hours before the onset of the Persian New Year, air defense weapons were firing shots at invading warplanes over Tehran’s sky.

Iranians will not also forgive this unforgivable war that started just about 20 days before the onset of their ancient New Year.

Just as Nowruz is synonymous with rebirth and vitality, the Iranians, despite all plots, sufferings and misfortunes, will leave behind these difficult days. To the surprise of the world, Iranians have withstood two nuclear powers that one of them is considered the most powerful country in the world. Instead, the names of those who have created such a situation for the Iranians will go down in history as villains.