A small crowd of Melbourne's Iranian diaspora gathered at Federation Square on Saturday to honour Nowruz, the Persian New Year.
It typically signifies the first day of spring in the northern hemisphere and is a time of celebration, rebirth and new beginnings, with those in Iran and abroad getting together to celebrate.
But the feeling in 2026 is also tinged with heightened political tension and concern within the community due to the war between Iran and a US-Israeli alliance.
"That has changed the mood from celebration into sadness but also people have hope that this could lead to something refreshing and a rebirth of a new Iran that people used to experience before the 1971 revolution," community member Amin Riazati told AAP.
The conflict has killed thousands of people, spread to neighbouring nations and hit the global economy since the US and Israeli strikes on February 28, after talks about Tehran's nuclear program failed to yield a deal.
Despite living halfway across the globe, many Iranian Australians continue to feel the effects of the regime's "oppression", with the crowd in Melbourne waving the Iranian lion and sun anti-regime flag and chanting slogans.
Families have lost sons, daughters and other family members, with tens of thousands of people killed on the streets of Iran in the past year.
Event organiser Sarah Parkhid urged Australians to stand with the Iranian people who have faced mental pressures during a 22-day Iran government-imposed blackout that cut off the internet and phone calls.
Iranian-Australian Mediya Rangi told the crowd Nowruz reminds people that winter, no matter how long, is not permanent, and yet spring does not arrive on its own.
"It comes because people hold on, because people resist, because people choose again and again not to surrender to darkness," she said.
Mujtaba Khamenei, Iran's new supreme leader, thanked the president, the government, the armed forces and the Iranian people for their resistance against the joint US-Israeli attacks in a Nowruz speech read on state television on Friday.
Khamenei, who has not been seen in public since an Israeli attack that killed his father and predecessor on the war's first day, declared the new Persian year the "year of the resistance economy in the spirit of national unity and security".
In a global message from the nation's exiled crown prince Reza Pahlavi and read to the Melbourne crowd, he remembered the "brave and immortal sons and daughters" killed.
He also paid tribute to the "patriotic struggle" that has brought the cause one step closer to "ultimate victory".
Mr Riazati shares in the hope and dreams of many in Australia for a new beginning of harmony, happiness and prosperity for not only the people of Iran but worldwide.
