Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said Tuesday that he was ready to sacrifice his life for Iran, writing on X that more than 14 million Iranians had already declared their readiness to do the same. The post came hours before an Iranian official urged young people to form human chains around the country’s power plants as fears mounted over possible US strikes on civilian infrastructure.
Pezeshkian wrote that “more than 14 million” Iranians had declared their readiness to give their lives in defense of the country and added that he, too, “has been, is, and will be” devoted to Iran. The message amounted to one of the clearest public calls yet from Iran’s leadership for national sacrifice as the crisis deepened.
AP reported separately that Alireza Rahimi, identified by Iranian state television as secretary of the Supreme Council of Youth and Adolescents, called on “young people, athletes, artists, students, university students, and their professors” to gather at 2 p.m. around power plants. He described the facilities as national assets belonging to Iran’s future and its youth, AP said.
According to reports by semi-official IRGC-linked Tasnim News Agency, human chains were formed around the Mashhad and Tabriz power plants, with videos of the people waving flags from the regime and holding signs that said: "infrastructure is not a battlefield."
The dual messages came after Trump threatened to strike Iranian power plants and bridges if Tehran did not reopen the Strait of Hormuz by Tuesday evening.
The Strait of Hormuz carries roughly one-fifth of the world’s oil trade, making the standoff far more than a bilateral crisis. Earlier reporting said US intelligence assessed Iran was unlikely to loosen its grip on the strait in the near term, underscoring why the Trump administration framed the issue as both a security and global energy emergency.
Iran has also signaled that any attack on its energy network could trigger retaliation against civilian infrastructure elsewhere in the region. Previous reports said Iranian and IRGC officials had warned that if Iran’s fuel and energy facilities were hit, Tehran could target Israeli power plants, gas rigs, desalination systems, and other strategic civilian sites.
Iran's First Vice President Mohammad Reza Aref also addressed Trump's threats in a Tuesday post on X, saying “Iran is not just an ‘event,’ it is ‘History’ itself.”
Deadline not yet arrived but negotiations appear to have stalled
Negotiations between Washington and Tehran appeared close to collapse on Tuesday, with US officials telling mediators that the gaps were too wide to bridge before Trump’s 8 p.m. deadline.
This comes after Iran rejected a temporary 45-day ceasefire proposal and demanded a full end to hostilities as well as guarantees for shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. Mediators, using Pakistan as the sole communication channel, were still trying to craft partial confidence-building steps on Hormuz access and Iran’s uranium stockpile, but sources described the chances of a deal as slim.
Amichai Stein contributed to this report.