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In this first-person testimony told to Al Jazeera, Khadijeh Bandari, an Iranian fisherwoman from Hengam Island in southern Iran, explains how the United States-Israel war on her country has disrupted her work and the lives of all the people on the island. 

I am 28 years old, and for as long as I can remember, I would go out to sea with my mother, who taught me how to fish.

When I was older, I got a boat of my own and started fishing. The sea belongs to us women just as much as it belongs to men. Like my mother, I consider fishing to be a part of my life.

When I married, my husband, who is from northern Iran, was living on nearby Qeshm Island. After we got married, he moved to Hengam Island, and we opened a small guesthouse together. We sold the fish we caught through our Instagram page and delivered it to different Iranian cities. At a seaside restaurant we also owned, my husband and I served tourists fresh fish we had caught ourselves.

We have a three-year-old son named Keyhan, whose name means “the world”. For us, he is our whole world. Sometimes he comes out to sea with me to fish, but other times he stays on the island with his father.

Life started to become difficult for us when for several weeks in January the internet was shut down in Iran. Few tourists visited the island, and the online sale of fish, which was a big part of our business, also stopped. When the internet was restored, we breathed a sigh of relief and thought life had finally returned to normal, but we were wrong.

On Saturday, February 28, my mother was out at sea fishing while I stayed behind at our restaurant on the shore.

What she called out from the water was the last thing I expected to hear. “The war has started,” she shouted. The sound of explosions from the American bombs reached Hengam Island soon after, and then a village near us was hit. Before we could even understand what was happening, a coastguard came to shore and told us to pack up our stalls and stay away from the beach.

In the first few days, everyone expected that, like before, the attacks would be over within a few days or weeks. But that wasn’t the case, and the war continued day and night. Over time, family by family, the residents began to leave Hengam Island.

Due to fears of bombing, the pier was closed, and fishing boats couldn’t go out to sea due to fears they would be targeted by American bombing. Travelling between Hengam and Qeshm was also prohibited due to fears that the passenger boats would be targeted. Fishing, which had always been a part of our lives, suddenly became a dangerous activity.

When the war intensified, the residents of Hengam who lived closest to the pier were asked to leave their homes due to the threat that the structures would be bombed.

The rest of my family went with my mother to my sister’s home on Qeshm Island while my father stayed behind to look after our goats. As our home was away from the pier, we thought we might be safe. But the island still felt dangerous, and I was afraid for my child’s life.

Nightly discussions always focused on how much time we had left on the island. Many people said they would not leave their homes. Some had nowhere else to go, or some simply didn’t want to abandon their homes and their lives on the island. The bombing of Hengam, Qeshm and the entire southern coastline of Iran continues, and we have no idea when it will stop.

One thing was clear: Both the Hengam and Kandaloo piers had been closed, tourists were no longer coming to the island, and fishermen and women could no longer safely go out to sea.

A month had passed since the war began, and it became clear that it would not end anytime soon. For us, keeping our spirits up and caring for Keyhan had become important. Like anyone with children, we started making up stories and playing games to help our child be less afraid of the sound of bombs and missiles.

For those of us still on the island, maintaining a sense of normalcy became very important. My mother, who had gone to Qeshm, called us every day, begging and crying as she tried to persuade us to leave Hengam. The neighbours who, like us, stayed would gather every night at our beachside stall.

We served local sweets and samosas to the few residents and tourists who were still around, and we talked about the war. We kept telling ourselves, “Maybe the war will be over tomorrow.” But the next day, the bombing continued, and “tomorrow” was pushed further and further away.

Eventually, my husband decided to take us away from Hengam for a few days to visit his family.

The day after we left Hengam, the island was attacked again. The pier where we would take food to my father and where our children would play together every day was destroyed in the attack, and three people were killed.

We heard about the attack on the pier that same day, but we didn’t know how bad the damage was or who had been killed. The phones weren’t working either, so we couldn’t reach anyone. It wasn’t until that evening when we began to hear back from people that we realised the extent of the destruction.

The damage to Hengam wasn’t limited to our homes, the pier and the fear we felt. Many people saw all their life savings, usually in the form of a boat, destroyed in the attacks.

Hava Arbabí lost her small boat and her home in the war. Since then, she has been living at her sister’s house. Aref Arbabi also lost his house that he had only recently started building as well as a boat that he had worked hard to buy this year. Soheil Hormozi will have to make repayments for years to come on a marriage loan he took out to buy a boat, even though the vessel was destroyed in the American attacks. Abutaleb Zarei also bought his boat with a marriage loan, and it was also destroyed. Many other homes in Hengam besides these were destroyed or suffered damage.

From the very first days of the war, people’s businesses and livelihoods on the island came to a standstill. No tourists are visiting the island, and the sea is not safe enough for us to go work in.

Still, many people are forced to go out to sea to fish because this is their only source of income. Even my mother and brother are still fishing despite the circumstances. When you have no other way of making a living, you are forced to take risks.

We lost our business and were forced to start from scratch. I started selling handmade jewellery made from seashells while my husband found work in the north. A few months ago, we moved from the southern sea to the northern coast, but our hearts are still in Hengam. Every day, we think about going back.

My mother, who urged us every day in the middle of the war to leave Hengam, has now returned to the island to fish. Every time she goes out to sea, we worry about her and call each other over and over again. We never know when the American bombing might start again.

Yes, we are homeless because of the war, but I don’t want the people of Hengam to be known just for that. We have always made a living through fishing, tourism and the fruits of our own labour. But now we have been deprived of the ability to work on our own land. We need to be able to return to our lives. For that to happen, the boats that were destroyed need to be replaced, the homes and livelihoods people have lost fixed and, most importantly, security needs to be restored so people can return to their ordinary lives.

Artikel Telah Tayang di : https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2026/9/2/we-had-an-ordinary-life-iran-fisherwoman-navigates-uncertainty-of-war