'Night Felt Endless': How UAE Expats From Qatar, Bahrain Dealt With 'Surreal' Regional Unrest

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On Monday evening, residents of Qatar and Bahrain found themselves thrust into the heart of a regional conflict when Iran launched a missile attack targeting the US air base of Al Udeid in Qatar.

The attack was in retaliation for American strikes on Iranian nuclear sites . By the next morning, a ceasefire was declared. The emotional whiplash, going from fear to fragile calm overnight, has left some residents disoriented and anxious.
For Noura Hassan, a Qatari marketing manager based in Dubai, the past 24 hours have been a blur of fear and uncertainty.“It began with a call from my sister in Doha, urging me to switch on the news. Then I was staring at videos of missiles in the sky and hearing sirens, I couldn't believe this was happening in Qatar,” she recounted.“All I did was refresh news feeds and call my parents. That night felt endless.”

Once she learned that flights were grounded and the skies closed, dread sank deeper.“It felt like we were pulled into something bigger than us. Even though I'm in Dubai, my heart was still racing for Doha.”

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The US had struck Iran's nuclear infrastructure on June 22 in an operation called Midnight Hammer, damaging the facilities at Natanz, Fordow, and Isfahan. Iran responded the next evening with missiles at Al Udeid as part of a mission dubbed Operation Glad Tidings of Victory. Qatar's Integrated Air Defence System intercepted nearly all of them, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned the attack as a“flagrant violation” of sovereignty, vowing it retained the right to respond proportionately.

Omar D., a Bahraini student at a university in Sharjah, described how his entire family in Manama stayed up all night after sirens went off.“My mother told me she kept checking the windows. They didn't know whether it was a drill or the real thing. I couldn't concentrate on anything after,” he said.

Although Bahrain wasn't directly hit, the looming sense of threat weighed heavily on his family.“They were all on edge. They couldn't sleep. Even here, I felt like I was holding my breath the whole time.”
The anxiety wasn't limited to students. Faisal J, a Qatari business consultant in Abu Dhabi, said hearing that a US base in Qatar was targeted shattered a deep-rooted sense of safety.

“When I heard a US base in Qatar was hit, my first thought was, 'What if these spreads?'” he said.“I've always worked across borders in the Gulf and felt safe. But suddenly, that confidence vanished.” Faisal said he plans to return to Qatar in the next few days, not because of fear, but because he needs to be close to his people.“I need to walk the streets, see my family, feel like we're okay. I can't do that from a distance.”
At a Doha TV press conference, Advisor to the Prime Minister and Official Spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Qatar, Dr. Majid bin Mohammed Al Ansari emphasised a swift return to normalcy:
“Essential goods, fuel, and water remain fully available. Qatar has an excellent strategic reserve, and the movement of people and supplies has not been affected by the attack. Life has returned to 100% normalcy,” the spokesperson said, adding that both citizens and residents continue to live their lives just as they did before the attack.

Emotionally, the scars linger. Noura described the surreal flip from terror to tentative calm:“We slept to war and woke up to peace,” she said.“But trust doesn't come instantly. We're still here, waiting for that feeling of safety to catch up.”

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