British tourists and expats in the glitzy cities of the Gulf woke up on Saturday unaware they were about to experience the wrath of a besieged and vengeful Iranian regime.
In Dubai, visitors and residents began their weekends in the air-conditioned luxury of the glittering apartment blocks, hotels and opulent gated estates to which they had long since grown accustomed.
Yet the pristine streets outside were soon to be littered with debris from missiles fired from across the sea by a Shia theocracy facing its greatest crisis since its seizure of power in 1979.
Explosions had erupted across Tehran, Iran’s capital, at around 9am local time as the United States and Israel began a series of massive strikes aimed at annihilating a system that has tormented policy makers in Tel Aviv and Washington for decades.
Iran’s response was swift and unrelenting. From launch sites across the country, wave after wave of missiles and drones were sent screaming through the sky towards Israel and US military bases all over the Middle East.
Many of them, however, would come crashing down in some of the world’s most exclusive and sought-after neighbourhoods.
One would smash into the front of Dubai’s five-star Fairmont The Palm Hotel, whose residents had begun the day enjoying panoramic views of the Gulf and the Dubai Marina.
By early evening, a fire raged near the entrance, with smoke billowing into the air as the sun set over the Dubai skyline. Some of those inside hurried to the basement to escape the onslaught.
At the nearby Bulgari Resort, Nick Candy, Reform UK’s billionaire treasurer, witnessed the chaos and told how the venue shook from a missile impact.
“We heard the shudder and the whole building shook. The area is covered in police now,” he said.
“This is an area of Dubai where you have shopping, commercial properties, residential, restaurants.
“This is like a missile landing in Knightsbridge or Kensington in London.”
Tara Thorpe, who moved from Britain to Dubai with her fiance last year, heard the news of the Iran strikes by late morning – but the conflict seemed a long way from the easy-going luxury of the world in which she lived.
At noon, she took her regular walk around the palm trees and lush grass of Dubai’s Jumeirah Golf Estates, an eco-friendly residential and sports complex in the south of the city.
Suddenly, with the blazing sun at its height, she heard “huge, thundering sounds overhead” and it dawned on her that her estate might be in the flight path of an Iranian retaliatory attack.
The Jumeirah complex is a short drive from the Port of Jebel Ali, the most frequently visited port by US Navy ships outside the US. Smoke was seen rising from the area during the bombardment.
Thorpe realised the danger she was in when she heard “two massive bangs overhead”.
They were interceptions, she said, fired at the incoming missiles by the UAE’s air defence systems. “Two taken out! Never thought I’d see a missile live in action.”
The sound of missiles could be heard from the skies above gated estates
A group of British expats were watching the attacks from the Jumeirah estate’s Crafty Fox Gastropub and Sports Bar. “What the f***, that’s two missiles, three missiles… intercepted… above our heads,” they were heard saying.
The situation worsened as the day progressed, with reports emerging of the strike on the Fairmont Hotel, which sits on the artificial island of Palm Jumeirah – home to an array of luxury villas, apartments, hotels and beach clubs.
It was “getting out of hand”, said one person. “Bangs everywhere. They look like shooting stars. Explosions over and over.”
One British businessman’s client was among those sheltering in the basement of the Fairmont. Other wealthy residents of the Jumeirah island hurried to underground car parks for protection.
Everyone was, by this point, “basically in lockdown and not leaving their homes”, one British expat said.
Videos of strikes had by then begun to be widely shared on social media and on WhatsApp chats. The Dubai authorities, however, wanted to maintain the perception of normality.
Residents were reportedly threatened with £40,000 fines for “spreading rumours”, leading people to scramble to delete footage of the strikes from their devices.
Local TV news channels were hardly mentioning the strikes, locals said, and a message sent to phones ordered people to rely only on information provided by official government entities.
Anastasia, a Belarusian influencer and entrepreneur in Dubai, said she was trying to find out which buildings were hit, but there was little information on TV news channels. Instead, she was trying to keep updated “on TikTok, Instagram or Twitter”.
Away from the chaos in Dubai, tourists in Abu Dhabi, the UAE’s capital, reported hearing loud bangs throughout the day, with hotel staff at first handing out complimentary ice lollies to calm nerves.
As the day progressed visitors were told to stay inside to avoid shrapnel from intercepted missiles. Pictures released by the local authorities showed a broken-up rocket lying in the middle of the road.
Panic buying was later reported across the country, prompting the UAE’s Government to issue a statement reassuring residents of the nation’s “robust” strategic reserves.
“We urge the public to remain reassured and not to be driven by unfounded concerns, excessive purchasing or stockpiling,” it read.
Luke Liversage was in a hotel room in Doha, Qatar, when he saw several missile interceptions outside his window. He described a scene of carnage and confusion, with hotel staff crying as people tried to work out what was happening.
As his phone started to receive national emergency notifications, he thought: “Am I actually being bombed here?”
Although most across the Gulf did not expect Saturday to unfold as it did, Briton Phil Winster, who installs home cinemas, was staying in an apartment opposite the US 5th Fleet military base in Bahrain, which was also targeted in the bombardment.
He said friends in the US military had warned him to evacuate just a few days before Iranian missiles struck.
“We had no warning from anyone else,” he explained. “I know a few of the US military based there, and they advised us to get out.”
The attacks shut down airports across the region, with thousands of people left stranded as airlines suspended operations and several countries closed their airspace.
Steve Neale, from Cumbria, was travelling back to Britain from Perth with a stopover in Doha when the Virgin flight he was on turned around 90 minutes into the journey.
He said: “The captain announced that we had been directed to turn back because of what was happening in the Middle East, and from the window we saw them dumping fuel.
“It’s disappointing – however, better to return than getting stuck in a war zone.”
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