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On the 28th of February, the US and Israel launched an attack on Iran, targeting military sites and the country's leadership.

The next day on Iranian TV, a visibly emotional presenter,

announced the death of the supreme leader Ayatollah Hamenei.

But sorrow turned into defiance on TV screens as a new Ayatollah Khamei was announced, the son Mushdaba.

The succession was framed as something reminiscent of a rebirth.

Chaminet has been made decades younger.

We've not lost Chaminet.

We have a rejuvenated Chaminet instead.

Immediately after the announcement, there were several people.

They went to their rooftops and started saying death to Moshaba.

Descent is dangerous here.

Just weeks earlier, mass protests were met with brutal force.

When the country later came under attack, state media switched into war mode.

We already had a more restrictive media environment from the January protests.

We had internet blackout, polarised atmosphere.

Now what we have is a wartime version of that, which is far more extreme.

In this episode, we peek under the bonnet of the machinery that shapes official narratives and controls information.

And we revisit the turbulent first days of the war as they unfolded on national TV.

Welcome to the documentary from the BBC World Service.

I'm Krassie Ivanovat-Wig and this is the Global Gixot from BBC Monitoring,

where we look at the world through the lens of its media,

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