Overview
- Iranian and U.S. strikes continued through the holidays, with Israel’s prime minister saying his forces took out two senior Iranian officials and issuing a Nowruz message to Iranians.
- UNICEF reported 214 children killed in Iran and more than 1,800 children killed or injured across the region since February 28, including a strike on a school in Minab that reportedly killed over 100 children.
- Despite official warnings, Iranians gathered for the Chaharshanbeh Suri fire festival in cities including Tehran, Karaj, Shiraz and Mashhad, as Nowruz coincided with Eid for the first time since the 1990s.
- Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei framed the year ahead as a period of “resistance economy,” while inflation, sanctions and wartime disruption curbed household spending and battered vendors such as flower sellers at Tehran’s Tajrish Bazaar.
- In the Bay Area, thousands joined Berkeley’s longstanding fire-festival block party, while some groups canceled Nowruz galas out of respect for losses and others held smaller events focused on community support and donations.