Under the Gloom over the Persian Gulf: Human Stories from 272 Hours of War

A city under fire

It is the human detail that lingers. People squeeze into hotel rooms as explosions rattle entire neighborhoods. Phoenix (凤凰) reporter Li Rui (李睿) slept through blasts and woke up inside a bathroom “like a small shelter,” while Chinese expatriates in Dubai and Abu Dhabi describe nights of streaking fire and daytime ash — children, trolleys of toilet paper, packed cars idling in garage exits ready to flee. It has been reported that, from about 9:45 a.m. on the day the violence escalated, US missiles, drones and Israeli warplanes carried out more than 2,700 strikes; civilians counted explosions from every compass point and cities raised air-raid alarms that turned normal life into a string of startled reactions.

Digital outages and economic aftershocks

The physical panic has been matched by technical and market shocks. It has been reported that three Amazon (亚马逊) Middle East data centers were hit, and that attacks precipitated widespread outages of large AI models and cloud services — a reminder of how fragile digital infrastructure is when a warzone overlaps a regional hub. The closure and reported partial blockade of the Strait of Hormuz sent global oil prices spiking; supply-chain disruption quickly rippled into chemicals, fertilizer and grain markets. Who pays the price? Ordinary people do — lining up for bread, buying two weeks’ supplies, or choosing to sleep on low floors so they can run.

Small acts, large meaning

Amid the turmoil, mutual aid became the order of the day. Chinese entrepreneurs and residents turned school-rooms and spare rooms into shelters, a Beijing livestreamer took in tourists and shared dumplings for Lantern Festival, and a Dubai restaurateur distributed thousands of pre-prepared meals. Some fled to Oman or the deserts of Al Ain; others stayed, cooking for those who could not move. Reportedly, locals and expatriates alike counted the value of order only after it fractured — and watched how digital dependence, geopolitics and old-fashioned neighborliness combined to shape survival during 272 hours of war.