Australians are making the perilous journey to flee across Israel’s borders as a conflict with Iran continues to escalate.
Less than a week after arriving in Tel Aviv to visit family, Alan and his wife are among hundreds of Australians making a mad dash to escape missile-fire overhead.
Waiting at the Allenby border crossing into neighbouring Jordan on Thursday, the Australian said he could be stuck there for hours as cars and trucks surrounded him bumper-to-bumper.
“But when you’ve been in and out of bomb shelters four to five times a night and having the stress of going through what we’ve gone through, we decided we had to pull out all stops to get out,” he told AAP.
He and his wife were offered seats on a bus arranged by Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs into Jordan but decided to make their own way after airports shuttered following Israel’s strikes on Iran, which triggered waves of retaliatory missile fire.
“If you took the bus, you have to arrange everything yourself from the Jordanian border to get where you wanted to go (in) different parts of Jordan,” he said.
“We felt we would be very vulnerable and it would take a lot of time.”
So they organised a private car which picked the pair up at 6.30am on Thursday to take them across the border in a 12 to 13-hour trip.
“If we left later, the queue would have been six hours and you can’t be guaranteed you’ll necessarily get across the border,” said Alan, who asked that his surname not be used.
On the other side, they have arranged to be picked up with their visas before heading to Amman Airport for their flight home.
Australian authorities evacuated the first group of citizens across a land border out of Israel on Wednesday, Foreign Minister Penny Wong said.
Israeli Ambassador Amir Maimon said he was “assisting the Australian government in every possible way” to get people out.
Evacuation was riskier in Iran, where the advice for Australians was to shelter if there was no opportunity to leave safely.
Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles said the government was working on contingencies including repatriation flights once the skies reopened.
Amid concerns the US could enter the conflict, about 1200 Australians in Israel have registered with the Department of Foreign Affairs for help to leave, while 1500 Australians and family members have sought help to leave Iran.
But Australian mother-of-three Emily Gian and her family have decided to stay where their home and work are despite life in recent days spent in and out of underground bunkers.
“We could hear it so loud that my kids thought that it was near our house,” Ms Gian told AAP on Wednesday.
“You feel the house shake.”
Unlike earlier conflicts with Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis, Ms Gian said the strikes from Iran came with the added fear the nation was believed to be working on nuclear weapons.
The conflict began on Friday after Israel moved to wipe out Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile program, claiming the Islamic republic was on the verge of developing nuclear weapons.
Senator Wong said the Iranian regime threatened the stability of the Middle East, urging it to return to the negotiating table and discontinue any nuclear program.
Israeli strikes on Iran have killed at least 639 people and wounded 1329 others, according to Washington-based group Human Rights Activists, while Israel said at least 24 civilians had been killed.
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