“There’s no home left, just a heap of dirt…” — the text message from the martyr’s daughter as she went to her paternal home keeps replaying in my mind. Sixty days later, we are visiting the site of one of Israel’s deadly crimes. I have no idea what I will see after all this time. Our destination is 6th Square, Narmak, Tehran. As we get out, there’s no need to look for the house—Fatemeh was right. From what had once been a three-story home with a yard, only a few heaps of dirt remain.

Return to 6th Square, Narmak; 60 Days After Israel’s Atrocity

The building across from the house we were visiting immediately caught our attention. The entire structure had been evacuated, and the effects of the explosion were clearly visible, showing how massive the incident had been. Blue plastic sheeting covered the front, held by scaffolding. Pushing it aside, we stood there for a few minutes, stunned, filming the scene. The details were so overwhelming that you had to constantly turn your head to take it all in. This had once been the home of the Moghimi family, now transformed into the massacre site of Mostafa Sadati Aramaki’s family—the nuclear scientist who, on the second night of the war, along with his wife, Fahimeh Moghimi, their three children—Reyhaneh Sadat, 15; Fatemeh Sadat, 10; Seyed Ali, 4—and his in-laws, Rababeh Azizi and Hamid Moghimi, a veteran of the Sacred Defense, were all martyred.

Here, It Smells of Homeland—Green, White, and Red

The three buildings next to this home were destroyed to the point that residents had completely evacuated. Yet on the wall of one house, the colors of the Iranian flag—green, white, and red—adorned with butterflies, had been painted. The paint cans were still there, showing it had been done recently. Later, I learned this artistic gesture was the work of Seyed Mohammadreza Miri, a painter and graphic designer, who seemed to breathe new life into the very ruins, imbuing them with the meaning of homeland.