Chief international correspondent
At the heart of the Iranian capital, the Boof cafe serves refreshing cold drinks on a hot summer day.
They must be the most distinguished ice coefficients in this city-cafeteria sitting in a leaf corner of the long-closed US Embassy.
Its high cement walls have been plastered with anti-American murals since Washington interrupted relations with Tehran after the Iranian Revolution of 1979 and the hostage crisis still casts a long shade on this excruciating connection.
Inside the charming Boof Cafe, Amir Barista says she would want the relationship to improve between America and Iran.
“US sanctions hurt our business and make it difficult for us to travel around the world,” he thinks as he pours another ice coffee behind a fierce wooden sign – “Keep calm and drinking coffee.”
Only two tables are busy – one of a woman covered in a long black veil, the other of a woman in blue jeans with long running hair, wearing the rules for what women should wear while cuddling with her boyfriend.
This is a small photo of this capital as it is confronted with its deep uncertain future.
On a short road, in the complex of Iran Irib's State Television Station, recorded speech by Supreme Leader Ayatola Ali Hamenei was aired on the nation on Thursday.
“Americans have opposed the Islamic Republic of Iran from the beginning,” he said.
“It has always been for one thing at its core: they want to surrender,” continued 86-year-old Ayatol, said she sheltered in a bunker, and Israel unleashed her unprecedented wave of strokes aimed at Iran's nuclear and missile sites and killings of senior commanders and scientists.
We have watched his speech, his first since President Donald Trump has suddenly announced a cessation of fire on Tuesday, on a small TV in the only office that is still intact in a huge section of the Irib joint. All that is le is the charred skeleton of steel.
When an Israeli bomb collided with this complex on June 16, a raging fire passed through the main studio that would radiate the address of the Supreme Leader. Now it's just Ash.
You can still try his pungent odor; All television equipment – cameras, lights, tripods – are tangled by twisted metal. A stepping glass carpet covers the ground.
Israel said it was aimed at the Islamic Republic's propaganda hand, accusing him of concealing a military operation and an accusation that his journalists were rejected.
His gaping shell seems to symbolize this darkest time for Iran.
You can also see it in hospitals in the city, which still refer to the Iranians wounded in Israel's 12-day war.
“I'm afraid they can attack again,” Ashraf Bargie tells me when we meet at the Emergency Department of the Talehani General Hospital, where he works as a chief nurse.
“We do not believe this war is over,” she says, in a note reflecting the tangible anxiety we have heard from so many people in this city.
When Israel bombed the threshold of nearby Evin prison on June 23The victims, both soldiers and civilians, were inserted into the emergency room of the nurse Bargie.
“The injuries were the worst I treated in my 32 years as a nurse, even worse than what I saw in the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s,” she says, still apparently difficult.
The strike in the notorious prison, where Iran detains most of his political prisoners, was described by Israel as “symbolic.”
It seems to be intensifying the repeated message of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to the Iranians to “defend their freedom.”
“Israel says he only hit a military and a nuclear prison, but it's all lies,” Mortesa from his hospital bed insists. He was working at the prison transport department when the rocket crashed into the building. He shows us his injuries both in his hands and in his back.
The neighborhood of the ward is taking care of the soldiers, but we are not allowed to enter there.
In this scattered metropolis, Iranians take into account the price of this confrontation. In its latest ratio, the Health Ministry of the Government recorded 627 people killed and nearly 5,000 injured.
Tehran slowly returns to life and resumes its old rhythms, at least on the surface. His scandalous traffic begins to fill the towering highways and many side streets lined with trees.
The shops in its beautiful bazaars open again when people return to a city where they escape to escape the bombs. Israel's intensive 12-day military operation, combined with US attacks against Iran's main nuclear sites, is so shaken.
“They were not good days,” Mina says, a young woman who immediately falls apart as she tries to explain her sadness. “She's so crazy,” she tells me through her tears. “We tried so much to have a better life, but we cannot see a future these days.”
We met at the site of the rising tower of White Marble Azadi, one of Tehran's most emblematic landmarks. A large crowd, grinding on a warm summer evening, was swinging on the strains of many beloved patriotic songs at the outdoor concert of the Tehran Symphony Orchestra. It was intended to bring some peace of mind to a city that is still on the edge.
Proponents and critics of Iran's clerical rulers mixed, assembled, sharing their concerns about the future of their country.
“They have to hear what people say,” Ali Reza insists when I ask him what advice he would give to his government. “We want more freedoms, that's all I will say.”
Despite the rules and restrictions that have long governed their lives, the Iranians speak their minds as they wait for the next steps from their rulers and leaders in Washington and beyond, who have such consequences for their lives.
Lyse Doucet is allowed to report to Iran provided that none of her reports is used in the BBC Persian Service. This law of Iranian authorities applies to all international media agencies operating in Iran.