The bombs fell while we scrolled.
Some of us were watching Sanremo, humming along to a ballad we'd forget by Monday. Others had the NBA on, or a Serie A match, or that Netflix series everyone keeps recommending. The glow of our screens felt warm, safe, familiar — the soft hum of normalcy wrapping around us like a blanket on a cold February night.
And then the notifications started.
The Night Everything Shifted
Tonight, the United States and Israel launched a joint military operation against Iran. The Israeli operation was named "Roar of the Lion" — its initial phase planned to last four days. Explosions rocked Tehran, with two columns of black smoke rising over the capital. The blasts weren't limited to one neighbourhood. They hit Qom, Isfahan, Karaj, Kermanshah, and Tabriz.
Among the targets: the Ministry of Intelligence, the Ministry of Defence, the office of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, and Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation. Trump confirmed the American attack in a video posted on Truth Social, declaring: "A short while ago, we began a major operation in Iran." Benjamin Netanyahu echoed the message, calling it an operation "to remove the existential threat represented by the terrorist regime in Iran."
What About Khamenei?
This is where things get murky — and terrifying. Trump claimed Khamenei is dead, calling him "among the most evil people". Iranian state media, on the other hand, reported that Khamenei had been moved to a secure location and was not in Tehran. BBC Verify confirmed videos showing celebrations in the streets of Karaj and Tehran following unconfirmed reports of his killing — people dancing, car horns blaring, a man shouting "I'm dreaming, hello new world!".
I don't know what's true yet. Nobody does.
That uncertainty is its own kind of violence.
The Human Cost We Don't See on the Ticker
Dozens of casualties have been reported among Iran's Revolutionary Guards, including key figures. Cellular networks across the country suffered severe disruptions. Airspace was shut down over Tehran, over Israel, and even over Iraq's Erbil airport. Flights were cancelled. Sirens wailing across northern Israel after Iranian missiles were launched in retaliation, with explosions heard near Haifa.
People in Tehran were running — fleeing their homes after the blasts.
Let me say that again. People were running from their homes.
Not soldiers. Not politicians. Not the ones who made the decisions. Ordinary people — parents grabbing children, grandmothers who can't move fast enough, students who were probably watching something on their phones just like us five minutes earlier.
I'm Angry. And I Don't Apologise for It.
I sit in my wheelchair in Tirana tonight, and I feel the weight of this. I've spent my life fighting battles — against my own body, against a movement disorder that tried to steal my independence, against systems that told me a kid from Albania in a wheelchair couldn't earn a degree in astronomy from Bologna or a Master's in physics from Milan. I fought through surgeries, through a DBS implant and its removal, through years of pain that most people can't imagine.
I say this not to compare my struggles to war. That would be obscene.
I say it because my entire philosophy — the one I built FreeAstroScience on, the one I carry with me every single day — is NEVER GIVE UP. And tonight, that philosophy feels like it's being tested. Not by my body. By the world.
How do you tell someone to never give up when bombs are falling on their city?
The Distraction Machine
We watch Sanremo. We watch the NBA. We binge Netflix until 2 a.m. and tell ourselves we'll deal with reality tomorrow. I do it too — I'm not above it. There's comfort in a good song, in a buzzer-beater three-pointer, in a plot twist that makes you gasp.
But distraction has a cost. It lets us look away just long enough for the unthinkable to become the inevitable.
Tonight, the unthinkable happened. A joint US-Israeli military operation — planned for months, according to Israeli security sources — struck a sovereign nation. The New York Times reported that this attack would be more extensive than the raids carried out in June against Iranian nuclear facilities. Dozens of American aircraft launched from bases across the Middle East and aircraft carriers.
This isn't a skirmish. This is something else entirely.
What Comes Next?
Israel's Defence Minister Katz warned that a missile and drone response from Tehran was expected "in the immediate future". Iranian missiles were already flying toward Israel within hours The Italian government convened emergency meetings — Prime Minister Meloni with her foreign affairs and defence ministers. Italy's Defence Minister Crosetto reassured that Italian military personnel were not involved, but the tension in his statement was palpable
The son of the deposed Shah, Reza Pahlavi, posted a message calling this a "humanitarian intervention" and urging Iranians to take to the streets. The Mossad opened a Telegram channel in Persian, inviting Iranians to share photos and videos of "your just struggle against the regime."
I'm simplifying geopolitics here for clarity — the real picture involves decades of nuclear negotiations, proxy wars, regional power struggles, and broken promises on all sides. But the simplified version is damning enough: tonight, people are dying, and the risk of a wider war is real.
An Optimist's Confession
I've always believed in the best of humanity. I've seen it — in the Italian doctors who treated a small Albanian boy they didn't have to help, in the professors who saw past my wheelchair, in the tens of thousands of followers who joined FreeAstroScience because they believe, like I do, that science and culture can change the world.
Tonight, I'm disappointed.
Not defeated. Disappointed. There's a difference. Defeat means you stop. Disappointment means you expected better — and you still do.
I expected better from world leaders who talk about peace while planning four-day bombing campaigns. I expected better from a species that can photograph black holes and sequence genomes but can't sit at a table and talk. I expected better from us.
What I Want
I want peace. That's it. That's the whole thing.
Not the naive, poster-on-a-wall kind of peace. The hard, messy, uncomfortable kind — where people who hate each other sit in the same room and don't leave until they've found something, anything, they can agree on. The kind that requires more courage than dropping a bomb ever will.
I don't have a solution tonight. I'm a physicist in a wheelchair writing from Tirana, not a diplomat in Geneva. But I have a voice, and so do you.
Don't look away.
Watch your Sanremo. Enjoy your NBA game. Finish that Netflix series. Life goes on, and it should — joy is not a betrayal of conscience. But when the screen goes dark, sit with the discomfort for a moment. Let it in. Let it change something inside you, even if it's small.
Because tomorrow is another day. And what kind of day it becomes depends — at least a little — on whether we chose to pay attention tonight.
— Gerd Dani, President of Free AstroScience Tirana, Albania — February 28, 2026
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