‘I think you and I are at war': the Australians suddenly united in grief over the Israel-Iran conflict
When Israel triggered a war last Friday after it sent a wave of airstrikes into Iran, Saina Salemi and Oscar were at work in Melbourne, sitting at arm's length away from each other at their desks.
Salemi saw the news headline first. She turned to Oscar and said: 'I think you and I are at war.'
'I thought she was kidding,' Oscar, who asked for his last name to not be used, recalled. 'I didn't understand. And then we went to the news, and it had all started, and my heart just sunk immediately.'
Salemi, who is 26, moved to Australia from Tehran when she was 7, and Oscar, who is 24 and from Israel, says for the past week they've shared in a grief that feels unending – but there has been a release in sharing it together.
The pair became friends when they started work the same day as each other 18 months ago. Since last week, finding out what is happening overseas and if it is affecting their families has become a shared obsession.
While sitting next to each other at work, they keep track of the rolling live coverage. Salemi also watches Persian news sources while Oscar watches the Hebrew channels.
'We're translating documents for each other. We're tracking where the missiles are being hit and seeing if they're close to our family members,' Oscar tells Guardian Australia, both he and Salemi speaking on the phone together from their office.
'If we find out information we want the other to know, we text each other, no matter what time of night it is,' Salemi says.
Sign up for Guardian Australia's breaking news email
Oscar's parents, who were visiting Israel when tensions flared are – for now – stuck there. Salemi's grandparents, aunts, and uncles live in Tehran.
Their shared grief has not just been defined by doomscrolling and sharing news about loved ones. Salemi says their focus is on the civilians suffering and the governments 'making the choice' to continue it.
'My people, Palestinians and Israelis are being used as political shields for geopolitical aims,' Salemi says.
Oscar says he is also battling a feeling of guilt, despite having no control over what is going on.
'I really care about her family. I feel so guilty, and even though obviously I'm not responsible for the actions of the Israeli government, but nevertheless, it really pains me to just see even more suffering being inflicted.'
'I don't want people to become desensitised to what is happening in the region, and the … scale of pain that is taking place every day. It's getting worse.'
By Friday, Israeli strikes on Iran had killed at least 657 people and wounded 2,037 others, according to Washington-based group Human Rights Activists. Of those dead, the group identified 263 civilians and 164 security force personnel.
Iran has not given regular death tolls during the conflict and has minimised casualties in the past. In its last update, delivered last Monday, it put the death toll at 224 people and 1,277 wounded.
Salemi says she has not heard from her family since the Iranian authorities blocked the internet.
'My auntie woke up in the middle of the night thinking that she was having a heart attack because the initial missile was so close to where she lived,' she says.
'I haven't heard from my family members in 36 hours, and there's a great sense of numbness when you worry that maybe that's the last time you've ever heard from your family members,' she says.
Oscar says he sometimes has difficulty reaching his parents by phone to check in on how they are. He struggled with the news that a hospital – where his nan had gotten care once after she had a stroke – had been hit by an Iranian rocket.
Salemi says while the bombs are falling from Israel, she also blames the Iranian regime – unpopular among many – for failing to protect its people. She points to there being no bomb shelters for people to turn to and disruptions to internet access that could help in planning escape routes with loved ones.
Despite the ruling regime being unpopular, Salemi is frustrated by rhetoric from Israel's president, Benjamin Netanyahu, that Israel could support regime change. 'Regime change in Iran will come internally, at the hands of my own people,' she says.
Oscar and Salemi say the war has inflamed the grief they were already feeling for the thousands of people killed by Israeli strikes in Gaza. Oscar said on top of this he is also grieving loved ones that died when Hamas attacked Israel on 7 October.
Since Israel and Iran began trading strikes, over 100 people in Gaza have been killed while seeking aid.
'The safety of Israel can't come from anything other than peace – lasting, negotiated peace,' Oscar says. 'I want a serious political solution and a lasting peace.'
Asked if there is anything they want the Australian government to do, Salemi says it should focus on getting Australian citizens out of each conflict zone.
Australia's foreign minister Penny Wong said on Friday there were about 2,000 Australians and their families in Iran and approximately 1,200 in Israel who wanted to evacuate.
'The security situation is obviously very difficult,' Wong said. ' The airspace remains closed.'
Oscar says that last Friday, after Israel first struck Iran, he and Salemi sat on the steps outside their work together. They already felt it could be different to the 'tit-for-tat' strikes in past months.
'I remember I turned to her and said, 'when will this end? How much longer does this have to go on?'.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Glasgow Times
13 minutes ago
- Glasgow Times
EU review ‘paints grim picture' of Israel's actions in Gaza, Irish premier says
The Taoiseach said the report highlights the restriction of food and medicines into Gaza, which he said 'amounts to the use of starvation as a method of war'. The EU-Israel Association Agreement is being reviewed after a dozen EU member states backed it last month. The unpublished report has found that there are 'indications' Israel could be in breach of its human rights obligations under the agreement, according to several media outlets. Reacting on Saturday, Mr Martin welcomed the 'substantive and important' report on Israel's compliance with its human rights obligations under the EU-Israel deal. He said Ireland had 'long argued' that clauses on human rights in the EU's international agreement 'have to be respected' and should prompt 'serious consequences' when they are not. Back in February 2024, Ireland and Spain jointly called for an urgent review of whether Israel had breached its human rights obligations in the trade agreement. A majority of EU countries did not back the review until last month, prompted by a proposal from The Netherlands. The shift came amid Israel's months-long blockade of Gaza, which has accelerated fears of a famine. A new Israeli and US-backed aid system has been marred by violence. Israel's 20-month military campaign in the the Palestinian enclave has killed an estimated 55,000 people and injured thousands more, according to Gaza's health ministry. Mr Martin said: 'I very much welcome the substantive and important report of the EU's High Representative for Human Rights on Israel's compliance with its human rights obligations under the EU-Israel Association Agreement. 'Bringing together the reports and analysis of serious, credible and reliable sources – including the International Court of Justice, the UN's Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the UN Secretary General's Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict and others – it paints a clear and grim picture of a sustained and deliberate failure by Israel to adhere to its international obligations, especially in Gaza but also in the West Bank. 'It highlights a continued restriction of food, medicines, medical equipment, and other vital supplies into Gaza that amount to collective punishment of the civilian population, that amounts to the use of starvation as a method of war. 'It describes an unprecedented level of killing and injury of civilians in Gaza resulting from indiscriminate attacks without proportion or precaution, as well as attacks on hospitals, forced mass displacements and the killing of journalists. All of this with a persistent lack of accountability. 'In the West Bank, it reports sustained oppression of the Palestinian population, including through state and settler violence, the appropriation of land, and the use of detention as a form of collective punishment.' He added: 'We will now work with partners to follow up on this important report with concrete steps, and I will be discussing it with my colleagues in the European Council when we meet next week.'
Leader Live
14 minutes ago
- Leader Live
EU review ‘paints grim picture' of Israel's actions in Gaza, Irish premier says
The Taoiseach said the report highlights the restriction of food and medicines into Gaza, which he said 'amounts to the use of starvation as a method of war'. The EU-Israel Association Agreement is being reviewed after a dozen EU member states backed it last month. The unpublished report has found that there are 'indications' Israel could be in breach of its human rights obligations under the agreement, according to several media outlets. Reacting on Saturday, Mr Martin welcomed the 'substantive and important' report on Israel's compliance with its human rights obligations under the EU-Israel deal. He said Ireland had 'long argued' that clauses on human rights in the EU's international agreement 'have to be respected' and should prompt 'serious consequences' when they are not. Back in February 2024, Ireland and Spain jointly called for an urgent review of whether Israel had breached its human rights obligations in the trade agreement. A majority of EU countries did not back the review until last month, prompted by a proposal from The Netherlands. The shift came amid Israel's months-long blockade of Gaza, which has accelerated fears of a famine. A new Israeli and US-backed aid system has been marred by violence. Israel's 20-month military campaign in the the Palestinian enclave has killed an estimated 55,000 people and injured thousands more, according to Gaza's health ministry. Mr Martin said: 'I very much welcome the substantive and important report of the EU's High Representative for Human Rights on Israel's compliance with its human rights obligations under the EU-Israel Association Agreement. 'Bringing together the reports and analysis of serious, credible and reliable sources – including the International Court of Justice, the UN's Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the UN Secretary General's Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict and others – it paints a clear and grim picture of a sustained and deliberate failure by Israel to adhere to its international obligations, especially in Gaza but also in the West Bank. 'It highlights a continued restriction of food, medicines, medical equipment, and other vital supplies into Gaza that amount to collective punishment of the civilian population, that amounts to the use of starvation as a method of war. 'It describes an unprecedented level of killing and injury of civilians in Gaza resulting from indiscriminate attacks without proportion or precaution, as well as attacks on hospitals, forced mass displacements and the killing of journalists. All of this with a persistent lack of accountability. 'In the West Bank, it reports sustained oppression of the Palestinian population, including through state and settler violence, the appropriation of land, and the use of detention as a form of collective punishment.' He added: 'We will now work with partners to follow up on this important report with concrete steps, and I will be discussing it with my colleagues in the European Council when we meet next week.'
Telegraph
19 minutes ago
- Telegraph
I am proud to be a Zionist and you should be one too
Zionist bitch. This was what my friend discovered a colleague had called her. Not just a bitch. But a Zionist one. Over the past year it has become increasingly normal for people in this country to use Zionist as a slur. To say that simply believing in the State of Israel's right to exist is fundamentally reprehensible. I can think of no other religion or nation state that has to put up with this. It is only the Jewish state that has the right to its very existence challenged in this way. Only Jewish people who should be denied a homeland. A homeland in the place Jews have lived, loved, worked and prayed for thousands of years. It should be clearly understood that believing in Israel's right to a place amongst nations is not the same as saying you are in agreement with everything the government of the country does. Yet when it comes to Israel, growing numbers of people are unwilling to separate the decisions of politicians from the right to a national homeland. Personally I abhor the statements made by Right-wing extremists Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich in the Israeli government. Does that make me believe that an entire nation should be cancelled? A nation that also happens to be the only democratic state in the Middle East? Take Iran as a comparison. Israel and Iran could not be more different. In Tehran, free speech and political opposition are violently suppressed in a country run autocratically and often brutally by ayatollahs. Women are not equal citizens and the gay community have to live in fear. Yet do you hear anyone calling for an end to the existence of Iran? Are there placards at mass marches on Britain's streets calling for the extinction of that nation? Is believing in the right of Iran to exist an increasingly common insult in public, on social media or the workplace? The obvious question is why this is happening with Israel but not other countries. For me and many other people who share my faith the reason is horribly clear. It is because Israel is the homeland of Jews. The fightback against this denial of a Jewish state in the Middle East must be clear, determined and high profile. It must be led by those in our country who have the most influence. Let's start with the leader of our nation. Sir Keir, a simple question: do you believe in the State of Israel's right to exist? If the answer is yes, then please state publicly that you are a Zionist. Please say this loudly and clearly so that this growing tide of anti-Zionist hate, which is ultimately a mask for anti-Jewish hate, can be arrested before conditions worsen further for Jewish people in this country and become truly dangerous. I call on the Government's front bench MPs to be equally clear that they believe in Israel's right to exist, that they too are Zionists. In the current climate it will take some courage, but isn't that what leadership is all about?
