Nearly 2,000 Australians want to leave Israel and Iran as the conflict between the two countries continues to intensify, with family members fretting and some abroad taking matters into their own hands to leave.
As speculation grows that the United States is preparing to enter the conflict, more than 1,000 Australians have registered with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade for help to leave Israel.
A further 870 Australians and family members want to leave Iran, after Friday’s escalation in the conflict with Israel attempting to wipe out Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs.
Iran’s airspace, and Israel’s main airport, Ben Gurion International, are both closed “until further notice”.
Israelis at the site of an Iranian missile strike in Bnei Brak, Israel, on Monday. Source: Getty, NurPhoto / Gili Yaar
Ron Gelberg arrived in Israel shortly before the conflict escalated and had planned to holiday there as part of an international trip.
The Australian had been staying put at his hotel, where he and other guests had been sent to its bomb shelter on several occasions, and while he felt relatively safe there, he wanted to return home.
Gelberg, who was in Israel’s capital Tel Aviv, told SBS News on Monday he had called Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) which he said couldn’t do much to help because there were no scheduled repatriation flights.
“So I took matters into my own hands,” he said.
Gelberg said he had paid a driver who would take him across the border into Jordan and fly from there to Denmark and then on to Australia.
He said he would have preferred to have been repatriated from Tel Aviv. He acknowledged the difficulties the Australian government may face in organising such flights amid missile fire, but believed they could have offered assistance getting to Jordan and repatriating from there.
Fears among Australia’s Iranian community: ‘Her voice was shaking’
Meanwhile, Asal (not her real name) is helplessly watching from Melbourne as missiles fall around her mother’s home in Iran.
A brief phone call each day is the only contact she can make with the eighty-year-old, who has now fled north of the capital.
“My mum is quite a strong woman. All my life, I never … heard her being that vulnerable,” she told SBS News.
“But I could see her voice was shaking.”
The journey to what Asal called a “safer city where there are not many military bases” took her mother more than 12 hours, with traffic gridlocked for hundreds of kilometres out of Iran’s capital, Tehran.
Asal says Australians with family stuck in Iran are feeling “helpless” as prospects of repatriation remain uncertain. Source: SBS News
Many of the Iranian capital’s nearly 10 million residents have either left the city or taken shelter indoors as Israeli airstrikes continue to pound major cities across the country for six consecutive days.
“It’s pretty much everywhere being bombed now,” Asal said.
Iranian officials said at least 224 people have been killed, mostly civilians, and another 1,200 injured in the recent strikes. Israel says 24 civilians have been killed in attacks by Iran.
Kambiz Razamara, who is the vice-president of the Australian Iranian Society of Victoria, said the difficulty in getting hold of people in Iran had exacerbated the worry many in the community were feeling.
While his own family has been confirmed as safe after the bombing attacks, he was concerned about an escalation of violence in the region.
“A big part of my family is near where the main nuclear reactors are, and if the reactors are bombed, then my whole family is exposed,” he said.
“People are trying to reach people, but you can’t contact people online and you can’t call.”
Rescuers workers at a site that was struck by an Israeli strike in Iran’s capital, Tehran, on Tuesday. Source: AAP, EPA / Iranian Red Crescent Society
Government ‘working very closely’ with stranded Australians
Treasurer Jim Chalmers said the Australian government was examining options for those who want to return, but evacuations were proving difficult due to airspace being closed.
“We’re obviously working very closely with those Australians via the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade,” he told ABC Radio on Wednesday.
“We’re monitoring developments in that very dangerous part of the world very closely.
The treasurer said Australia and other countries were examining US President Donald Trump’s statement about the conflict.
“The US President has signalled that he wants a deal. I think there’s a broad, there is broad international support for a return to dialogue and diplomacy,” Chalmers said.
“It’s a perilous place, the Middle East right now, it’s a perilous time for the global economy.”
DFAT is asking anyone in the region who wants to return home to register with the government’s Smartraveller website.
Israel launched its air war, its largest ever on Iran, on Friday after saying it had concluded the Islamic Republic was on the verge of developing a nuclear weapon.
Iran denies seeking nuclear weapons and has pointed to its right to nuclear technology for peaceful purposes, including enrichment, as a party to the international Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Israel, which is not a party to the NPT, is the only country in the Middle East believed to have nuclear weapons. Israel does not deny or confirm that.
Netanyahu has stressed that he will not back down until Iran’s nuclear development is disabled, while Trump says the Israeli assault could end if Iran agrees to strict curbs on enrichment.
Before Israel’s attack began, the 35-nation board of governors of the United Nations nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, declared Iran in breach of its non-proliferation obligations for the first time in almost 20 years.
With reporting by the Australian Associated Press and Reuters news agencies.
