Avocado toast, influencers and … panic: How the party ended in Dubai

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — We had been laughing about a dismal performance in this year’s edition of the Italian Sanremo song contest — when we heard a big bang outside.

The boom triggered an alarm in our modernist apartment block beside Dubai’s towering Burj Khalifa, and the phones all began buzzing with an emergency government notification: “Please remain indoors in safe areas.”

We grabbed our passports, bolted down the staircase and hunkered down in the garage. There are no air raid shelters in Dubai.

During an almost sleepless night, I checked my phone every hour — giving me a slight glimpse of what ordinary Ukrainians have endured for more than four years.

Until now, none of us — presumably not even Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto, who rushed back to Rome in a military plane from Dubai on Sunday — could have imagined having to seek shelter in this glitzy resort town, which has monetized its reputation as a safe harbor from tensions in the Middle East.  

My plans on Saturday to fly to Nicosia, Cyprus to cover an upcoming meeting of EU ministers after stopping over in Dubai to visit a friend were suddenly obliterated by Iran’s unprecedented strikes on Gulf countries including the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.

The UAE’s Ministry of Defense said that within 24 hours the country was attacked by 165 ballistic missiles, two cruise missiles and 541 drones — most of which were destroyed by their air defenses. Debris from those intercepts hit Dubai Airport and two luxurious hotels, Fairmont The Palm and Burj Al Arab.

It soon became clear that Dubai’s Western expats — an exotic mix of high-flying corporates, influencers and holiday-goers like me — were poorly equipped to handle a crisis.

Few people chose to take the stairs — a no-brainer when drones and missiles are flying above the city. Several residents waited in the reception area with their chihuahuas and cats — the sound of barking and meows being drowned out by the roar of sports cars heading for nearby highways.

“Where on earth are they going?” I wondered. We had dismissed the well-intended advice of an acquaintance to drive for more than two hours to Oman — a theoretical safe haven, until it was targeted by Iranian strikes the following morning.

On Sunday, Dubai’s usually choked highways were empty as ominous blasts continued to echo throughout the city.

Buzzy Kite Beach — which had been bustling with bulked-up joggers before the conflict erupted — emptied the following day. Any unexpected noise drew panicked reactions from the few beach-goers who continued to order avocado toasts.

Buzzy Kite Beach — which had been bustling with bulked-up joggers before the conflict erupted — emptied the following day. | Andrew Aitchison/AFP via Getty Images

Despite the unease, the legions of people who deliver food on tiny mopeds never stopped working and continued to supply the homebound population. They reminded me of the nurses and doctors who kept the medical system afloat during the Covid-19 pandemic.

It’s too early to tell whether Iran’s attack will permanently damage Dubai’s image as a safe and trendy melting pot.

“Iran did not strike a military base in Dubai. It struck the idea of Dubai,” the analyst and author Shanaka Anslem Perera wrote on X. “Dubai is a financial thesis. It is the proposition that you can build a global city at the mouth of the Persian Gulf and insulate it from the region’s violence.”

But as in every crisis, Dubai’s sharky financiers, at least, see an opportunity.

“It’s the right time to buy property, prices will massively go down after the attacks,” a young consultant enthused to me as I tried to blink away the sleepless night.