Armoured cars, ferries: How Australians are fleeing the Middle East

Australians are resorting to chartering armoured cars and ferries to flee Israel, or sheltering in place in Iran, as Australia’s embassies scramble to organise evacuations in a region where flights are not operating and conflict is escalating.

Almost 3000 Australians have registered to be evacuated out of Israel and Iran, representing a near doubling in the number of people seeking to flee for each day the conflict has continued, and some have accused the government’s response of being “delinquent”.

Beachgoers in Tel Aviv leave during a missile alert from Iran.Credit: AP

At least two buses have already left Israel for Jordan with Australians on board, including one organised by insurers and the other by the government, but others are paying private companies for evacuation via armoured car or ferries to Cyprus.

Wong told ABC News Breakfast on Thursday the missile strikes between Israel and Iran made the situation difficult because they made it impossible to conduct evacuation flights.

“It’s a very, very difficult situation on the ground at the moment,” Wong said. “Obviously, there are more opportunities [to evacuate people] in relation to Israel. We took the opportunity to get a small group out across by land crossing yesterday. And we’ll seek to continue that … Iran is a very complicated situation, a very risky situation.”

Passengers on a ferry that left Israel for Cyprus as the conflict escalated. Credit: Facebook

Airspace over the region has been closed since June 13, after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu launched dozens of missile attacks on Iranian targets with the aim of ending the expansion of its nuclear weapons development program. Iran has since retaliated.

Governments’ struggles to evacuate citizens have spurred demand for private exit routes. Earlier this week tour groups of Jewish Australians co-ordinated to join a ferry to evacuate from Haifa to Cyprus.

US medical and security response company Global Rescue also reported a spike in requests from people who would have to pay thousands for their rescue.

The company’s associate director Harding Bush said one Australian in Israel was driven by private security guards in an armoured SUV to the country’s eastern border where a Jordanian team picked him up and took him to the airport.

Evacuations of this kind were executed all week from Israel, Bush said, as well as some from Iran that proved to be more difficult.

“As soon as airspace shuts, while governments are still figuring out how to organise group evacuations, we tend to get stranded travellers searching us on the internet, because there’s no other way to get out,” he said.

David Morris, a Jewish Australian executive from Sydney, is one of the many stuck in Jerusalem along with his wife since the attacks, spending hours each night in their hotel’s safe room.

Morris said he was frustrated by the lack of information from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, which has told Australians to make their own assessments about the safety of leaving Israel.

“We can’t make our own assessments because we have no information,” he said. “I’m sitting in the hotel room and I’m going to use social media to make an assessment?”

On Tuesday, Morris received an email from the department asking if he wanted to make a land crossing to Jordan via a private bus.

The email said “you will be responsible for your onward travel after arrival in Jordan”.

Despite responding “yes”, Morris said he received no reply.

“This is really unacceptable and the Australian government is delinquent in the way they are managing this situation,” Morris said, questioning why there was not more proactive support available to evacuate citizens once they reach Jordan.

According to government travel advice, Australians should make their own safety assessments before travelling by land from Israel into neighbouring countries. “Transport routes may be disrupted. Roads may be crowded and exposed to security risks such as military action, rocket attacks and terrorism, as may border crossings,” the Smart Traveller website says.

National security expert John Blaxland said it was likely Australians were shuttled out through Jordan and into Egypt, where airspace was open.

“There’s clear routes through Egypt that you can transit and the airports that are working are through Egypt,” he said.

Israel’s borders with Lebanon and Syria in the north, which traverse heavily militarised areas, are unlikely to be used for evacuating Australians.

The director of AUSIRAN, a group that advocates against Iranian authorities’ repression, Rana Dadpour said many of her friends and family stuck in Tehran cannot access internet, let alone evacuate.

Founding director of AUSIRAN Rana Dadpour says her friends and family stuck in Iran are scared.Credit: Greville Drew

“Since 14 hours ago, all internet has been cut off so we’ve lost contact with everyone in Iran,” Dadpour said. “The situation is very scary right now because the regime began arresting people for sharing concerns for their lack of safety.”

Wong said the closure of airspace complicates the government’s ability to assist people, but she believed more Australians would want to leave in coming days and weeks.

“Those numbers, I anticipate will continue to climb. They’ve certainly increased over the last few days in Iran, the situation is obviously very challenging and our advice is to leave, if safe to do so, otherwise, to shelter,” she said.

Sydney mother Sandra Steinberg said she was “incredibly angry” with DFAT, after her 30-year-old son became stuck in Tel Aviv.

“People are dying on both sides and the government has washed their hands completely,” Steinberg, who is Jewish, told this masthead. “People are feeling abandoned by the government, they feel like the government doesn’t care.”

She said her son was in Israel for a Pride festival, staying in an AirBnb without a reinforced safe room, but had left on Wednesday on a bus for neighbouring Jordan, where he was waiting for a flight home on Thursday evening.

“My son’s insurance company organised [the bus], why couldn’t the government?” Steinberg asked.

The crisis in the Middle East forced US President Donald Trump to cut short his attendance at the G7 in Canada, resulting in a first face-to-face meeting with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese being cancelled.

Senior American officials are reportedly preparing for the possibility of a strike on Iran in coming days, a sign that Washington is assembling the infrastructure to enter a conflict with Tehran.

Trump told reporters at the White House on Wednesday he has “ideas as to what to do” and that he prefers to make the “final decision one second before it’s due” because the situation in the Middle East is fluid.

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