I’m an Australian living in Israel and am staying put: What I’m about to say sounds awful – but it’s the brutal reality over here right now
Aussies desperate fight for survival inside war-torn Israel
READ MORE: Penny Wong issues urgent warning to Aussies in Iran
By NICK WILSON FOR DAILY MAIL AUSTRALIA and AAP
Published: 01:15 BST, 20 June 2025 | Updated: 01:15 BST, 20 June 2025
An Australian family choosing to stay in Israel despite the threat of Iranian missile attacks have revealed how their children are coping with the ongoing bombings.
Australian mother-of-three Emily Gian and her family are among those who have decided to stay put in Israel, where they live and work, despite the risks.
Ms Gian moved to Yehud, a city in central Israel about 12km east of Tel Aviv, just months before Hamas launched a terror attack on the country on October 7, 2023.
She said that day, which claimed the lives of about 1,200 Israelis, ‘caught the whole country off-guard’ but the latest conflict with Iran was ‘on a whole new level’.
‘It’s been hundreds of missiles at a time… The protocol for the earlier rockets that were coming from Hamas was to go into a shelter for ten minutes, then you could come out,’ she told Sunrise.
‘But here it’s going into the shelter and stay there until you get told you can come out.’
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.
Despite having spent recent days in and out of underground bunkers, Ms Gian said her kids had come to live with their new circumstances.
Emily Gian and her husband Tomer (pictured) have decided to remain in Israel despite ongoing Iranian missile strikes
Ms Gian and her family have spent recent days in and out of underground bunkers
‘It sounds awful, they’re not desensitised to it but they’re kind of used to it.
‘They know what to do. They’ve done it before. It’s like a fire drill, the more times that you practise it, the easier it is to be able to do it.’
Meanwhile, other Aussies are making making a mad dash for the border under the threat of overhead missile fire amid lengthy delays.
Alan and his wife, who arrived in Tel Aviv to visit family less than a week ago, are among then.
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.
Air strikes have been ongoing since the conflict broke out on Friday. Pictured is the Israeli defence system activated over Tel Aviv to intercept Iranian Missiles
Australians are among the countless commuters braving the queues at a border crossing from Israel into Jordan (pictured)
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‘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.
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.
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I’m an Australian living in Israel and am staying put: What I’m about to say sounds awful – but it’s the brutal reality over here right now
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