Particularly emotional is the written testimony of Iranian rescuer Pourabbas, who pulled the body of a young pregnant woman from the ruins of a family home.
According to field reports, an airstrike on a residential area, which witnesses stated was not a military target, occurred around three hours after midnight. After rescue teams received permission to access the destroyed building, beneath a massive concrete pillar they found the body of a woman in her early thirties.
In his report, Iranian rescuer Pourabbas detailed the scene he encountered, noting that the victim was facing the Qibla, with her hands tightly clutching her stomach where she carried a three-month-old fetus.
"I pulled the ultrasound image from her right hand. It was crumpled, with brown stains—perhaps from tears, perhaps from blood. In her other hand was a pink, stitched plush toy with wool coming out," recounted Pourabbas, saying it was written that "Nazanin" was the name the mother had intended for her unborn daughter.
The sight of civilian casualties at this location temporarily halted the work of the rescue teams. Pourabbas emphasized that such events reveal the brutality of the conflict, where the highest price is paid by unarmed citizens.
"I knelt in the ashes of their home, kissed the toy, and placed the ultrasound beside it. God, they had no weapons, they were not soldiers. This woman only wanted her daughter to be born. She wanted to teach her to sew plush toys, to laugh and live under a blue sky, not under a roof bursting with fire," said the Iranian rescuer.
After retrieving the body, workers on the ground had to continue the search due to new bombs falling on the city. Pourabbas decided to keep the found toy as a reminder of the civilian casualties and the consequences of war.
"I went behind the collapsed wall and said: 'Nazanin, sweetheart. Your mother did not abandon you until her last breath. Even when iron and fire rained from the sky, she kept her hand on you. One rescuer will keep your toy in his pocket near his heart until the war ends. Until no mother has to sew a toy for her baby, knowing there may be no tomorrow,'" concludes Pourabbas's testimony.