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The photos, made under amid evacuation alerts and falling missiles, show the tension between normalcy and chaos.

Israel said its campaign aimed to cripple Iran’s , which its officials maintain are for peaceful means. Israel's strikes also pounded buildings around Tehran, while Iran fired back with barrages into Israel. A ceasefire began June 24.

For 12 days, Tehran was transformed. The city normally bustles at all hours, its highways packed with cars and apartment towers lit up. During the war, most of the population fled. At night, blackness descended on the city.

Those who remained largely stayed indoors. Outside their windows came the rhythm of explosions — sometimes distant, sometimes close enough to shake them — and the crackle of air defenses.

One night, a group of friends gathered for dinner at a Tehran home. The table was full, the atmosphere warm. Guests joked with one another. But even as they dished up food and sat down in the living room to eat, everyone was glued to the television for any news.

The next night, one of the largest and most powerful explosions in Tehran struck a short distance from where they had gathered.

For Sara, a 9-year-old Afghan girl, reading and drawing in her sketchbook helped her endure the days at home. She sat on the living room floor with her markers, turning to see the TV.

Her family fled to Iran to escape the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan four years ago; now during Israel’s campaign, they were living through a new war. The family stayed inside not just for fear of strikes. They also worried they might be detained and deported amid wartime suspicion of Afghan refugees among some.

“Afghanistan is my homeland, and so is Iran. I have two countries that feel like one,� Sara said. On one page of her sketchbook, she wrote, “Mursal, I love you, my dear� — a message for her best friend, whose family fled back to Afghanistan during the bombardment.

Sara and others are only being identified by their first names out of concern for their security.

During the day, some might step outside between blasts, capturing smoke rising in the distance with their phones. After one strike hit a building, a puddle of blood remained on the street.

Evacuation alerts often came late at night. Some people spent nights in subway stations for safety. They lay down sheets and blankets on the tile floor or sat on the steps, scrolling through their phones as fighter jets and explosions could be heard on the streets above.

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This story has been corrected to remove extraneous material.