As Iran and Israel fighting rages, many people face a difficult choice

For some people in Iran and Israel, the past week of fighting between their two countries has posed a difficult question: stay, or leave?

Choosing the former usually means living with an ever-present risk of serious injury or death. At best? Survival and constant anxiety.

Seeking to leave your home to find safer areas — elsewhere in the country or abroad — may seem an obvious option, but there are multiple reasons why it’s not one available to everyone.

It often represents a logistical nightmare that comes at enormous financial cost (just ask the Israelis who chartered yachts to take them on a 20-hour journey to the safety of Cyprus this week).

Some residents of Tel Aviv are determined to stay in the city. However, they are moving underground to stay safe.

Three generations of the Papirany family are currently living underneath one of the city’s largest malls, the Dizengoff Centre.

Their home is still standing. But a missile strike a few days ago hit buildings a couple of hundred metres away and they are worried about being caught short in future.

“I’ve never heard anything like it before, there were like several jets up ahead, like a dog fight was going on, and we heard lots of booms,” Tracey Papirany said.

“And then next minute, such a loud boom that everyone yelled and grabbed each other.”

When the ABC visited the car park, people’s mobile phones started chirping with advance warning of a missile strike, which comes from an official Israeli government app.

“We put on a show, just for you,” Mali, Tracey’s daughter, quipped.

“This is our everyday life, it’s the reality here and that’s what we accept when we come here.

“We know what we’re coming into and we live with it each day now.”

Maya Papirany, Mali’s sister, said she had copped abuse from her friends for moving to Israel.

She had been living in New Zealand with her two young children while her parents were in Australia. When they moved to Israel, she followed.

“I made that decision knowing that there was a war, but I knew that I had no choice, there was nothing else I could do, it was my sanity, my mental health and doing what I thought was best for the children at the time,” she said.

“And since moving over, people have been messaging me saying, how could you bring your children to this war? How could you do this to them?”

While the Papiranys brought their own bedding, the shopping centre’s management is also sourcing supplies.

“We’re also bringing them tents and mattresses, so people will come here every night, just for the night, from 6pm to 9 in the morning after,” Dizengoff centre chief executive Dan Pilz said.

“And then they can spend the night safely, not be worrying about taking the kids to run during the bombs.

“Without tents and mattresses, 4,000 or 5,000 people can stay here, [with tents] we believe we can contain around 100 or 150 families.”

‘We didn’t get to say goodbye’

Almost 1,500 kilometres away, in Iran, Israel’s attacks over the past week have sparked a rush at many of the country’s land borders as people attempt to flee.

With airports shuttered, hours-long traffic jams clogged roads out of the capital, Tehran.

Some were headed for more isolated areas, particularly in the country’s north, while others, like Barry Jahed, 34, and his father, Parvis, wanted out altogether.

Both men are British-Iranian and live in London.

Parvis had been working on a film in Iran and had been based there for several months at the time of the latest attacks, while Barry had arrived in the country to visit family in May.

After several days of moving between various locations — including a particularly distressing night at a relative’s home, which was punctuated by “a series of air raids and explosions”, according to Barry — the pair decided to head for the country’s border with Türkiye.

That meant convincing a stranger to drive them north.

“We didn’t get to say goodbye to family members or anything like that. We made a rush to the border in this car,” Barry told the ABC.

They relied on connections to beat large queues at petrol stations, and eventually used a border crossing that’s typically reserved for freight.

Once in Türkiye, Barry and his father combined with a group of around 16 other people in the same position to rent a dilapidated minibus in an attempt to drive towards Istanbul and its major international airport.

After multiple mechanical issues, that trip took about 24 hours.

“We had a young girl sit up front, and she was the DJ and put on music, and we listened to some songs and tried to make it as enjoyable as possible, as uncomfortable as the journey was,” Barry said.

After boarding a flight in Istanbul, Barry and Parvis are now back in London.

But their concerns about the situation in Iran remain ever-present.

“I’m worried about not just the bombings, but also the further consequences of shortages of fuel and therefore food,” Barry said.

His elderly grandmother is among the many people who cannot leave.

“She’s not able to move around very much,” Barry said.

“If there is some kind of shortages, this could very much be bad for her health.”

While Barry may be safe, his anxiety looks likely to continue as fighting rages into a second week.

And if the rhetoric from leaders in both Israel and Iran is anything to go by, the end of hostilities could be a long way off.