The phone rang at 3am in a Tel Aviv apartment. On the other end, back in Brisbane, were her two children — half-asleep and suddenly scared. She told them she loved them. She told them not to worry. Then she ended the call, looked out the window, and watched another missile trail across the sky.
She is one of roughly 115,000 Australians who found themselves stranded across the Middle East when US and Israeli forces launched strikes on Iran on the last day of February — triggering a regional conflict that spread with terrifying speed and which Foreign Minister Penny Wong has called the largest consular crisis Australia has ever faced in the region.
What began for most of them as a holiday, a business trip, a family visit, or simply a long-haul transit through a Gulf hub has turned into something unrecognisable — a week of closed airspace, missile alerts, shelter-in-place instructions, and a desperate, hours-long scramble for any seat on any plane heading anywhere that felt safe.
For many, that seat still hasn’t arrived.
How the crisis started
US and Israeli strikes on Iran sent shockwaves across the region in hours. Iran retaliated almost immediately — and broadly. Within the first 72 hours, according to Foreign Minister Penny Wong, Iran had struck nine countries across the Middle East, including Qatar and the United Arab Emirates — nations that were not involved in the conflict and had not anticipated becoming targets.
Dubai International Airport, the world’s busiest international airport by passenger volume, sustained damage after drone attacks targeted the facility. Airport officials described “minor damage in an incident which was quickly contained,” but the runway closures and emergency protocols that followed grounded operations almost entirely. One concourse was hit. Four workers were injured. Drone debris caused a fire on the outer facade of the iconic Burj Al Arab hotel across the water.
Airspace closures followed in rapid succession. Iran, Iraq, Israel, Syria, Qatar, Kuwait and Bahrain all shut their skies. Jordan partially closed. The cascade effectively severed Australia’s main air corridor to Europe and the Middle East. According to aviation data firm Flightradar24, more than 2,300 flights were cancelled across the region on the first day of strikes alone, with another 716 scrapped the following day.
Aviation data platform Cirium confirmed that more than 23,000 of approximately 44,000 scheduled regional flights in the first few days after the strikes were cancelled outright. Under normal conditions, around 11,000 Australians pass through Middle Eastern air hubs every single day. The maths was brutal: tens of thousands of people stranded, and almost nowhere to go.
The human faces of the crisis
Lisa Segelov is a Sydney-born woman who now lives in Tel Aviv with her children. She told Channel 7 that her family had been sheltering at home under emergency instructions — no school, only essential services running, and the sound of missile interceptions overhead. The orders were simple: stay close to home. She followed them.
In Doha, Penny Milton and her children had been flying to watch her husband, Australian Paralympic skiing legend Michael Milton, compete at the Winter Paralympics in Cortina, Italy. Their plane turned back midair as it neared the Iraqi border. The pilot came over the speaker and told passengers that Iraqi airspace had closed, and the aircraft began circling. Then it diverted back to Doha. Milton described the moment she realised something was seriously wrong — the change in flight direction, the circling, the silence — as the most frightening of her life.
An Australian man living and working in Dubai, who asked not to be identified because he said residents were being warned about fines for speaking publicly about the Iranian attacks, described watching missiles above his apartment building as a stark reminder that nowhere in the region felt truly safe. He told SBS News that the silence from the Australian government in the first 48 hours was deafening. “The US has alerted all expats to leave the region. We were told to wait for advice.”
Others, unable to wait, took drastic measures. Some Australians began driving rental cars across borders to Oman — a ten-hour journey through the desert in temperatures exceeding 35 degrees — hoping to reach Muscat International Airport and find a seat on a flight home. Taxi drivers along the route were reportedly charging up to $650 for the crossing.
The scale of the problem
When Penny Wong rose in the Senate on Tuesday and confirmed the scale of the crisis, the numbers were staggering. Of the 115,000 Australians in the region, roughly 24,000 were in the United Arab Emirates alone — most in Dubai and Abu Dhabi. Thousands more were in Israel, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, and Lebanon.
Wong described the situation as the largest consular operation DFAT had ever conducted in the region. “The number of affected Australians dwarfs any consular operation the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has ever conducted,” she said. She thanked UAE Deputy Prime Minister Hamdan bin Mohammed Al Maktoum personally for providing accommodation and meals to stranded Australians while they waited for flights out.
DFAT activated its 24/7 Crisis Centre and opened emergency registration portals for Australians in Israel, Iran, the UAE and Qatar. Six DFAT Crisis Response Teams were dispatched to the region, with two military aircraft — a C-17A Globemaster and a KC-30A Multi-Role Tanker Transport — positioned nearby for contingency repatriation if commercial options remained unavailable.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese emphasised from the outset that commercial flights remained the fastest route home for most Australians, given the sheer scale of numbers involved. But with most airspace closed and limited emergency corridors available, even the commercial route was far from guaranteed.
Criticism and political pressure
The government faced mounting criticism from the Opposition, with shadow foreign affairs minister Ted O’Brien accusing it of an “amateur hour” response in the critical early days. “For many Australians stranded in the Gulf, this is their hour of need,” he said. “And what they’ve had from the government is amateur hour in response.” Liberal senators called on DFAT to approve military planes immediately, though Wong noted military aircraft could not operate while the airspace remained closed.
The Opposition’s position was complicated by the fact that Australia under successive governments had consistently maintained fuel reserves and consular capacity well below recommended international standards — a structural vulnerability that pre-dated the current government by many years.
Both Albanese and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney — who happened to be visiting Canberra that week — called for immediate de-escalation of the conflict at a joint press conference on Wednesday, with Albanese urging Iran to “cease attacks” while also making clear he wanted Iran’s nuclear ambitions permanently ended.
What you should do if you are still stranded
For Australians still in the region as of Saturday, DFAT’s advice is straightforward: register through the emergency portal at smartraveller.gov.au if you haven’t already done so. Keep your airline informed of your current contact details. Do not cancel your booked flight without speaking to the carrier first — doing so could forfeit your right to rebooking or a refund.
Gulf-based carriers including Emirates and Etihad have no legal obligation to provide hotels, meals or transfers under the applicable laws — unlike EU or UK-based carriers covered by EU261 passenger protections. Any assistance provided by Gulf airlines is discretionary. Document all expenses and keep every receipt.
The 24-hour Consular Emergency Centre can be reached on +61 2 6261 3305 from overseas, or 1300 555 135 if calling from within Australia. DFAT Crisis Response Teams are now on the ground across the UAE, Israel, Qatar, and Oman to provide direct assistance.
The first Dubai-to-Sydney flight since the conflict began landed at Sydney Airport on Wednesday night. More than 230 Australians disembarked to waiting families. Some people cried. Most just stood still for a moment, breathing.
But for 115,000 others, the wait — and the fear — continues.
Leave a Comment