South Korean student shares harrowing escape from Israel amid missile barrage
YouTube video captures missiles flying across woman’s dormitory window in Jerusalem, as air raid sirens force her to rush into bomb shelter
A South Korean college student has recounted her harrowing escape from Israel amid a barrage of Iranian missile strikes as a fragile ceasefire between the arch-foes takes hold following a 12-day conflict.
The woman, who is studying at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, chronicled her June 13 evacuation during the aerial clash in a video posted to YouTube last Thursday.
She said she was woken up by air raid sirens at 3am, forcing her to rush into a bomb shelter.
“I initially thought the situation would resolve soon, but I heard the sirens again the next day,” she said in the video, capturing flying missiles that she saw from the window of her college dormitory, as more than 100 missile alerts buzzed her phone.
The student was scheduled to travel to Paris on June 16, which she had booked four months ago, but the flight was cancelled.
Looking for a way out of the country proved difficult due to soaring air fares that hit 2.37 million won (US$1,740) from the previous 816,785 won, The Korea Herald reported.
She later managed to reach Jordan by bus with help from the local South Korean community and Seoul’s embassy in Israel.
While she was packing her luggage, the sirens kept blaring and prompted the woman and her friends to take refuge at a shelter.
The visitor spent a day at a South Korean household in Amman and arrived at Incheon airport in her home nation on June 18 via Saudi Arabia and Qatar, ending her five-day ordeal.
Seoul’s foreign ministry said on Tuesday that 150 South Koreans and their family members had been moved out of Iran and Israel after issuing a travel advisory for the warring countries.
An estimated 800 South Korean nationals live in Israel, mostly students, who are mainly involved in religious studies.
While some social media users heaved a sigh of relief after the woman reached home, others accused her of evangelisation, saying she should have stayed back in Israel.
It was not immediately clear what course she was pursuing in Jerusalem.
On Tuesday, US President Donald Trump brokered a ceasefire to end the 12-day war between Israel and Iran that broke out after the mainly Jewish state bombarded Tehran’s nuclear and military facilities, killing senior generals and scientists.
Trump also berated both sides, especially Israel, for violating the truce. The two countries said they would respect the ceasefire provided their counterpart did the same.
An uneasy calm has returned to the Middle East, for now.
