‘The Air is Unbreathable’: Tehran Shrouded in Cloud of Toxic Smoke After Israel Strikes Fuel Depots

Iran’s capital was engulfed in a cloud of toxic smoke that unleashed black rainfall dozens of miles away on Sunday after overnight Israeli strikes on several fuel depots caused fires to burn for hours.

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Images from Tehran, a city of nearly 10 million people, showed thick black smoke from the fires hanging over it, while residents reported difficulty breathing and oil-tainted rainfall staining everything around them. 

“The rain is black, I can’t believe it, I’m seeing black rain,” Kianoosh, 44, a Tehran resident and engineer, told TIME. “It’s even in Tajrish, which is miles and miles away from the oil tanks.”

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Parviz, 49, a university professor in a city about 70 miles north of Tehran, said he didn’t recognize his car when he went outside: “My white car was almost black,” he said, recounting his difficulty in finding it. “I just washed it yesterday.“

Iran’s Red Crescent Society warned residents of Tehran and the surrounding region that the rainfall after the strikes could be “highly dangerous and acidic,” and could cause “chemical burns of the skin and serious damage to the lungs.” 

Leila, a 27-year-old teacher in Tehran, said the air was “unbreathable.” 

“Something like a black monster has swallowed the sky over Tehran,” she told TIME. “It’s as if all the cars and the street pavement have been coated in black paint.” 

“Today I was in the car for just 15 minutes, breathing this air. I don’t even know what it is, and now I have a headache. The skin on my face, especially my lips, is sore and raw. It burns and feels like diluted tear gas is in the air. It irritates my eyes, and I keep needing to clear my throat,” she added. 

Ahmad, a 63-year-old Tehran resident, said he had to leave the city due to the air pollution.

Iranian state media reported that the Aghdasieh oil warehouse in northeast Tehran, the Shahran oil depot north of the city, an oil refinery in the south, and an oil depot in Karaj, west of Tehran, were among those targeted.

The Israeli military took responsibility for the strikes, saying on X that it targeted “several fuel storage complexes belonging to the [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)] in Tehran” that it claimed were used to “distribute fuel to multiple military entities in Iran.”

Israel also targeted the Shahran oil depot in northwestern Tehran during its 12-day air campaign against Iran in June last year.

‘Destruction and certain death’

The strikes came on the same day as President Donald Trump warned that the U.S. would escalate its bombing campaign, writing in a post on Truth Social on Saturday that “today Iran will be hit very hard.”

“Under serious consideration for complete destruction and certain death, because of Iran’s bad behavior, are areas and groups of people that were not considered for targeting up until this moment in time,” Trump wrote. 

Tehran residents reported heavy bombardment in other parts of the city on Saturday.

TIME has reached out to the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) and the Pentagon for comment.

The attacks constitute the most significant attack on Iran’s civilian industrial infrastructure of the war so far, a little over a week into the U.S.-Israeli attack that has killed more than 1,000 civilians and spiraled into a regional conflict that has seen hundreds of Iranian missiles fired at Israel and America’s Gulf allies in retaliation. 

A separate theater of the war has seen Israel launch a major attack on Lebanon in an attempt to disarm the militant group Hezbollah.  Lebanon’s health minister said Sunday that 394 people have been killed so far in that conflict, with 83 children among that number.

Iran’s Red Crescent Society also said on Sunday that about 10,000 civilian structures across the country had been damaged, including homes, schools and medical facilities.

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Iran has responded to the U.S.-Israeli offensive by launching a barrage of missiles and drones towards Israel and Gulf countries that host American military bases. It has struck not just military targets, but civilian targets such as hotels, airports and apartment buildings across the region. 

Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei also said on X that by targeting fuel depots, the “aggressors are releasing hazardous materials and toxic substances into the air, poisoning civilians, devastating the environment, and endangering lives on a massive scale.”

Water wars

On Saturday, Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, accused the United States of attacking an Iranian desalination plant —which turns seawater into drinking water—on Qeshm Island. 

“The U.S. set this precedent, not Iran,” Araghchi said on X. “Water supply in 30 villages has been impacted. Attacking Iran’s infrastructure is a dangerous move with grave consequences.”

Both Israel and the U.S. military denied carrying out the attack. When Trump was asked by a reporter about the accusation on Saturday, he denied knowledge of the attack and attacked Iran’s leadership.

“They are among the most evil people ever on Earth…Take a look at October 7. Take a look at what they’ve done over the last 47 years,” Trump said. 

“I know nothing about a desalinization [sic] plant other than to say, if they’re complaining about a desalinization [sic] plant, we complain about the fact that they shouldn’t be chopping babies’ heads off,” he added. 

On Sunday, the day after Iran’s warning of grave consequences, Bahrain accused Tehran of carrying out a drone attack that “caused material damage” to a desalination plant there. “Iranian aggression indiscriminately attacked civilian targets,” Bahrain’s Ministry of Interior wrote on social media.

Iran, Bahrain, and other countries across the Gulf rely on desalination plants to sustain populations of millions in arid climates. 

The United Arab Emirates’ defense ministry also said that the country was targeted by a barrage of Iranian ballistic and cruise missiles, as well as drones. 

As escalating attacks on infrastructure continue, Kuwait’s defense ministry also reported a “wave of drones” that damaged fuel tanks at the Kuwait International Airport. The ministry did not name the source of the attacks