Fresh internet shutdown in Iran sparks public fury

Authorities have given undocumented Afghans until July 6 to return to Afghanistan.

490,000 undocumented Afghan immigrants have left Iran over the past 100 days, a deputy governor general in Razavi Khorasan province said on Saturday.

Brigadier General Ahmad-Ali Goudarzi, the Border Guard Commander of Iran’s Law Enforcement Force (FARAJA) announced last week that all rental agreements with undocumented Afghans have been nullified.

Landlords, he warned, would have their properties confiscated if they failed to comply.

Following the conflict with Israel, Iranian security forces arrested several Afghans who allegedly helped Israeli intelligence.

The accused, they said without providing evidence, participated in Mossad operations including surveillance and building drones to strike Iranian targets.

As Iranian officials and state media warned about the security threat undocumented Afghans could pose to the Islamic Republic, anti-Afghan sentiments surged on social media in the days leading to the ceasefire.

Speaking on state television on June 28, Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni said some Afghans who entered Iran in recent years came “with a specific intent to carry out sabotage operations” during the recent Iran-Israel conflict.

“We can’t accept some people to come into our country and harm our security," he said.

Increase in migrants

As inflation and unemployment has mounted in recent months, some Iranians and officials had already been calling to expel the millions of undocumented and impoverished Afghans to claw back jobs and government handouts for citizens

Until the Taliban's return to power in Afghanistan in 2021, the number of Afghans, including 780,000 who held official refugee status, rarely exceeded two million.

The number of Afghans living and working in Iran sharply increased during President Ebrahim Raisi’s tenure, who adopted what critics called an “open border policy.”

Under this policy, Afghans entering on a three-month tourist visa were allowed to extend their stay and obtain work and residence permits. Officials say as many as 4,000 visas per day were issued until recently.

Some officials say over 3 million documented Afghans and an additional 4 million undocumented economic migrants live in Iran now. A small minority of non-refugees are wealthier Afghans who fled after the Taliban takeover.

Surge in forcible returns in recent weeks

A June 25 flash update from the UN Migration Organization (IOM) reported that over 30,000 Afghans have returned from Iran daily following the ceasefire, compared to 3,000–4,000 per day before the conflict.

Returnees face heightened protection risks and require urgent access to safe accommodation, healthcare, and water, sanitation, and hygiene services upon arrival, the report said.

UNICEF reports that 5,000 unaccompanied children are among recent returnees.

Demand for Afghans’ return

Persian-language social media have been flooded with anti-Afghan posts in recent years. Calls for the expulsion of all Afghans were a major topic in last year’s snap presidential elections.

Critics argue that cheap Afghan labor deprives Iranians of jobs and strains healthcare and education systems while increasing government subsidies for essentials like bread, oil and fuel.

However, some Iranians express sympathy for Afghans and condemn their sudden, forcible repatriation. Others point out that life under the Taliban will destroy the lives of many Afghan women who will no longer be able to study or work.

“I am ashamed to see and hear about the manner of deporting Afghans, and I apologize to them. This way of sending them off is imprudent,” wrote Ali-Asghar Shafieian, managing director of the reformist Ensaf News.

“They worked hard in Iran and wouldn’t have migrated if conditions were favorable (at home)".

Warnings about labor crisis

Undocumented and many documented Afghans have provided cheap labor to Iran's industries, agriculture and services sector for decades.

Although employing undocumented immigrants is illegal and their presence is banned in over a dozen provinces, many government contractors for local governments rely heavily on their labor.

In a recent article, Donya-ye Eghtesad, an economic daily, argued mass deportation could create more jobs for low-income Iranians and reduce unemployment, but warned it may also cause labor shortages in construction and agriculture and drive up prices of goods and services.

Iran’s official unemployment rate stands at 7.6 percent, but many believe the real figure is significantly higher, as the government considers anyone working at least one hour per week as employed. Around one-third of Iranians live below the poverty line.

"Although the Iran-Israel ceasefire has paused direct military engagement, cyber operations have intensified," Marwan Hachem, co-founder of FearsOff cybersecurity experts, told Iran International.

“Since the truce began, nearly 450 cyberattacks have been recorded against Israeli targets—many attributed to pro-Iran hacker groups,” he said.

Attacks on Iran's finance, infrastructure and energy complex, Hachem said, were fewer but more sophisticated and have been traced to actors linked to Israeli intelligence.

"Post-ceasefire, there are only about 10 known cyberattacks by pro-Israeli actors against Iran ... the fewer Israeli attacks tend to be more targeted and impactful.”

During the war, a pro-Israeli hacking group known as Predatory Sparrow claimed credit for a major cyberattack on Iran’s Bank Sepah.

The group also later said it had drained around $90 million from Nobitex, Iran’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, adding it had posted Nobitex source code lists on X.

In spite of a ceasefire, however, the cyber war goes on.

“The era of silent digital aggression has arrived, and even allies may become targets in this murky domain of quiet offensives. The illusion of peace doesn’t extend to cyberspace. In fact, we expect cyber operations to grow more aggressive—only more covert. Silence is no indicator of safety.”

Daily attacks

Israeli cyber expert Boaz Dolev, from Clearsky Cyber Security, said there are daily attempts to hack small to medium sized businesses in Israel, and as yet, have not succeeded in attacking critical infrastructure.

“There is a lot of smoke all of the time. Iran didn’t disrupt Israel’s infrastructure by cyber-attacks but some Israeli companies were hacked and some sensitive information was leaked."

“We think they’ve breached dozens of Israeli companies, small to medium sized ones," Dolev added. "Most of them are providing services to large organizations in Israel so there is some sensitive information that was inside."

“They tried to do it by using vulnerabilities in computer systems, or sending it as phishing, but as much as I can say, they didn’t succeed most of the time. The ones they breached and hacked, they can start the destruction process, and some companies have had servers hacked and deleted.”

One cyber expert in Israel who asked not to be named, said Israel remains “much stronger than Iran in the cyber arena”.

“They can do whatever they want in Iran. The question is how they’re using the power and who you’re going to attack, when, and what will be the damage,” he added.

“This is why they decided to attack the financial system in Iran," the expert added. "It was a message for Iran that said the infrastructure is more vulnerable than they can imagine.”

The video shows two powerful blasts roughly a second apart just steps away from the main hospital in the Tajrish area, near the capital's bustling Qods Square.

One hits a building, sending a huge cloud of smoke up on the other side of the street, and another lands between cars at an intersection.

The second blast hurls the vehicles and a huge plume of smoke high into the air.

At the time of the explosions, around 15:30 local time on June 15, the street was busy with vendors, shoppers, metro passengers and traffic as many had still not left the capital for safer places.

Other videos of the incident posted earlier on social media showed extensive flooding caused by damage to a major water pipeline from the second blast, adding to the chaos. A three-year-old child reportedly drowned in the flood.

The 12-second footage, released on social media on Thursday, appears to be from a traffic surveillance camera.

The footage emphasized the harm endured by Iranian civilians apart from Israeli strikes which assassinated commanders and nuclear scientists and pummeled key military and nuclear facilities until a June 24 ceasefire.

Iran's health ministry reported 610 people were killed in the conflict and 4,746 injured.

Independent tallies put the toll higher—1,190 according to the US-based human rights group HRANA, which reported military deaths just above 400, with the rest either civilians or yet to be determined.

Verified

Some activists and social media users allege that the video was digitally manipulated or AI-generated.

However, Factnameh, an Iranian fact-checking website, and BBC both deemed the footage genuine, comparing it with other images from the area of the impact.

Victims

Iran reported 18 people killed, including a pregnant woman and her child, and 46 injured in the strike but has not released a full list of victims.

The Israeli military reported the killing of Brigadier General Mohammad Kazemi, chief of the IRGC Intelligence Organization, his deputy Brigadier General Hassan Mohaqeq, and military intelligence officer Mohsen Bagheri on the same day.

Iran confirmed their deaths but neither side has disclosed the exact location of their deaths.

Other incidents with high civilian casualties

On June 23, Israel launched several missiles at Tehran’s Evin Prison, calling the site a “tool of repression.”

Among the dead were two prison officials, Ruhollah Tavasoli and Vahid Heydarpour, as well as Evin's top prosecutor Ali Ghanaatkar. Dozens of detainees, medical staff, visiting families — including a young child — and even a bystander were also killed.

Another Israeli attack on June 24 in Astaneh Ashrafieh in northern Iran killed 16 people, most of them from the same extended family, and completely destroyed several homes.

The bombing targeted nuclear scientist Mohammad-Reza Sadighi, who had survived an earlier Israeli attack in Tehran but lost his 17-year-old son Hamidreza in the airstrike.

The group urged the Communications Ministry and the Infrastructure Company to “immediately end the deliberate disruptions to online access.

“Over 400,000 small and medium-sized enterprises, whose livelihoods millions of Iranians depend on, are facing complete collapse," the open letter dated July 2 said.

Internet access in Iran was disrupted on June 13, the first day of the 12-day war with Israel, and was completely cut on June 17. Partial service has since resumed, but connection speeds and access remain severely limited.

State media defends blackouts citing cyber war

On Saturday, the IRGC-affiliated Fars News Agency said the disruptions may reflect a large cyber war targeting national infrastructure, describing the attacks as organized and part of a “hidden battle growing more severe by the day.”

During the war, officials justified the shutdowns as a measure to block Israeli reconnaissance drones allegedly using Iranian SIM cards and to disrupt intelligence gathering via WhatsApp. But military and communications experts have dismissed those remarks.

“I categorically reject the Islamic Republic’s claims. No evidence has been presented to show that Israel uses SIM cards for drones," Mehdi Yahyanejad, an expert in internet technologies, told Iran International.

"Even if that were the case, a nationwide internet shutdown is not a logical solution," he said.

The daughter of top military commander Ali Shadmani—killed shortly after his appointment to lead Khatam-al-Anbia Central Headquarters—said her father carried no smart devices during the war, and that “Israel’s precision targeting went far beyond WhatsApp or traditional espionage.”

Her remarks followed accusations from Gholamreza Jalali, head of Iran’s Passive Defense Organization, who said WhatsApp was used to locate and kill Iranian commanders—a charge Meta has denied.

Layoffs, collapse feared in tech sector

The Internet Business Association, in its letter, cited ongoing disruptions—DNS tampering, throttling, protocol filtering, and loss of global access—as already triggering mass layoffs, stalled investment, and startup shutdowns.

“We are witnessing a broad wave of job cuts, halted investment in the startup ecosystem, and announcements of company closures—that is to say, bankruptcies,” the letter said.

The group warned that continued interference “threatens public trust, accelerates elite migration, and risks the death of Iran’s tech sector,” demanding an immediate end to all forms of service degradation.

Iran ranked near the bottom in global internet freedom last year. According to the Tehran Electronic Commerce Association, the country is placed among the lowest in speed and reliability out of 100 surveyed nations.

Surveys suggest 84% of Iranians rely on VPNs to access free internet.

The data, provided by a research group at Oregon State University, suggest that six Iranian missiles hit military targets across northern, central, and southern Israel, including what the report describes as a major air base, an intelligence facility, and a logistics center.

“The radar signatures we analyzed show definitive blast patterns at five separate military sites,” Corey Scher, a researcher with the Oregon State team, told The Telegraph. “These are consistent with missile strikes that likely occurred during the height of the conflict.”

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) declined to confirm or deny the reported damage. “What we can say is that all relevant units maintained functional continuity throughout the operation,” a military spokesman told The Telegraph.

The Telegraph reported that the missile strikes described in the radar data appear to be separate from the 36 previously reported impacts on residential and industrial areas, which caused widespread damage.

Iranian missile penetration increased during conflict, report says

According to The Telegraph, the proportion of Iranian missiles that penetrated Israeli air defenses increased during the war, rising from about 2 percent early in the conflict to roughly 16 percent by day seven.

The report did not offer definitive reasons for the increase, but cited expert suggestions that the causes “may include the rationing of a limited stock of interceptor missiles on the Israeli side and improved firing tactics and the possible use of more sophisticated missiles by Iran.”

Iranian officials told The Telegraph that the use of simultaneous drone and missile attacks was intended to confuse Israeli defense systems. “Many [drones] don’t even get through—but they still cause confusion,” one unnamed Iranian official said.

The Israeli media on Friday quoted a military official as saying that Iran began the conflict with around 400 missile launchers and that “we destroyed more than 200 of them, which caused a bottleneck in their missile operations.”

The same official estimated that Iran started the war with 2,000 to 2,500 ballistic missiles and is pursuing mass production that could dramatically expand its arsenal.

A more comprehensive analysis of the damage to both Israeli and Iranian infrastructure is expected from the Oregon State research group within two weeks, according to the report.

The group uses radar-based methods that detect changes in the built environment, but it acknowledged that full confirmation of military site hits would require either on-the-ground access or high-resolution satellite imagery.