Juliette

It wasn't that people didn't want to talk.

They couldn't.

Not only is it extremely dangerous for Iranians to speak to an American journalist, phone calls could be monitored by the regime.

But the bigger problem was a communication blackout.

Days have passed without word from family and friends.

The Iranian government had effectively cut off the country from the rest of the world.

The number I kept seeing was 99%.

99% of Iranians who normally had access to the internet now didn't.

I was trying to reach the remaining 1%.

These would be people with workarounds, like VPNs or enough money to afford satellite communications like Starlink, that could get them online for even just a few minutes.

And then, almost a week into the war, my colleagues and I got a few replies.

Hello?

Some of them only had enough internet to send text messages.

But others were able to send short voice memos.

I am in my own bedroom.

We heard a loud explosion.

At that time, people were still reeling from the war's initial shocks.

Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had just been killed in an airstrike.

Many of the people I spoke with were critical of the regime, like the vast majority of Iranians.

Their spirits seemed high.