For decades, Iranians in Australia have carried their homeland inside them as memory — rallying outside embassies, campaigning for prisoners, and watching from afar as their countrymen and women were killed by a regime that met protest with bullets. On Sunday morning, something shifted. Word spread that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's Supreme Leader for 36 years, had been killed in joint airstrikes by the United States and Israel. The phones lit up. Some wept. Others danced.
The mood across Australia's Iranian community was, by almost every account, impossible to reduce to a single emotion. Shadi Rouhshahbaz, an Iranian-Australian futures and peacebuilding researcher, said many Iranians were experiencing "a multitude of feelings" — fear, grief, exhaustion, but also hope and joy. That is perhaps the only honest way to describe it: not celebration, not mourning, but both at once, layered over genuine terror about what comes next.
Khamenei was assassinated on 28 February 2026 in a series of airstrikes conducted by Israel and the United States, with his death confirmed by Iran's Supreme National Security Council and by state media the following day. His tenure as Supreme Leader spanned 36 years and six months, making him the longest-serving head of state in the Middle East at the time of his death. Iranian state media confirmed the killing early on Sunday, with the government announcing 40 days of mourning. Four members of Khamenei's immediate family were also killed in the same strikes.
In Sydney, a celebratory event was held at Hyde Park to mark the death of Khamenei and the prospect of regime change, with members of the Iranian diaspora dancing, waving flags, and holding up posters of exiled Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi. In Canberra, a group of about 200 people waving Australian, American, Israeli and old Iranian flags chanted and danced outside the Iranian Embassy. In Melbourne, a group gathered at Federation Square in the CBD on Sunday morning.
The joy was real, but so was the cost. Adelaide-based gynaecologist and surgeon Fariba Willison, who has participated in multiple anti-regime protests in recent weeks, reached for a medical metaphor to describe what she was witnessing. "I feel that my country is going through a big surgery, that they are cutting out cancer, and this is a big process and a big procedure," she told SBS News. "It is a mixed bag of emotions. I am upset for my people that they have to go through such a difficult time, but I am, at the same time, very happy and celebrating because it is happening."
Siamak Ghahreman, president of the Iranian Community Organisation, said major parts of the community he had been in contact with were "happy about what has happened", arguing that the regime had always directed "all military and financial resources against people", and that foreign military support had therefore always been welcomed. In Brisbane, one Iranian-Australian family marked the moment with a traditional celebration, sharing cakes and sweets, with Amin — who declined to give his surname — setting up a morning tea with signs reading "free Iran". He told AAP, "It's the start of a new day for Iran."
Not everyone on the streets was celebrating. In Sydney, the Palestine Action Group, which regularly holds pro-Palestinian protests, demonstrated against the strikes. In Melbourne, an event organised by the Free Palestine Coalition Naarm gathered near the State Library to condemn the attacks, with one speaker declaring, "Iran is fighting and bleeding for humanity itself." The Socialist Alliance strongly condemned the strikes as "illegal", saying they supported Iranian people's struggle for democratic reform but argued the bombing would "not assist that struggle in any way."
Those objections carry weight that deserves serious engagement. Three legal and human rights experts interviewed by SBS News all concluded there were no justifications under international law for the attacks, with international law professor Emily Crawford saying the strikes were "not even close" to being legally compliant. UN Secretary-General António Guterres told an emergency Security Council meeting that an opportunity for diplomacy had been "squandered", warning that "military action carries the risk of igniting a chain of events that no one can control in the most volatile region of the world." Russia condemned the killing outright, and China said it "strongly condemns" the strike, calling it "a serious violation of Iran's sovereignty and security."
The Albanese government took a different view. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the Australian government supports the United States acting to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and to prevent Iran from continuing to threaten international peace and security. His statement pointed to a specific Australian grievance: Iran had directed at least two attacks on Australian soil in 2024, targeting the Australian Jewish community in acts intended to "create fear, to divide our society and to challenge our sovereignty." In response, Australia had already taken the unprecedented step of expelling Iran's ambassador, suspending operations at its Tehran embassy, and listing the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a state sponsor of terrorism.
Foreign Minister Penny Wong addressed the Iranian-Australian community directly, acknowledging the distress of the communications blackout and the inability of many Australians to reach friends and family inside Iran. She said she thought "no one would mourn the passing" of Khamenei, but was careful to add that "any regime change must be determined by the people of Iran." Wong emphasised that despite supporting the US strikes, the key question was "what happens next", urging de-escalation and calling for dialogue and diplomacy.
Wong confirmed that more than 4,000 Australians had registered for help to leave the Middle East, with around 2,900 in Iran and 1,300 in Israel. Australian officials were deployed to Iran's border with Azerbaijan to assist those who could cross. The Smartraveller page for Iran was updated to warn that military strikes had occurred in Tehran and other major cities, with a risk of "ongoing reprisal attacks and escalation", and local security conditions likely to deteriorate further.
The aviation chaos hit Australian airports within hours, with four Qatar Airways flights operating for Virgin Australia departing Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne and Perth forced to turn back mid-flight when Qatar's airspace was closed. In total, 65 flights were cancelled across those three cities, with more than 600 delayed. The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade activated its crisis centre and urged Australians in the affected region to stock up on food, water and medication and shelter in place if unable to leave safely.
Back inside Iran, reaction was similarly fractured. As Khamenei's death was confirmed, many Iranian civilians took to the streets to celebrate, with videos circulating from Isfahan, Karaj, Kermanshah, Qazvin, Sanandaj and Shiraz. Thousands of mourners simultaneously gathered in Tehran's Enghelab (Revolution) Square, dressed in black and waving Iranian flags. The same country, the same streets, but a profound disagreement about what this moment means.
The Council on Foreign Relations was blunt in its assessment: "Taking out Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is not the same as regime change. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is the regime." Khamenei's killing set off an immediate succession crisis with no clear answer, and under Iran's constitution, an interim council assumes power while the Assembly of Experts — a body of 88 Islamic clerics — selects a new Supreme Leader. Israel claimed its opening strikes had decimated the chain of command, killing seven senior defence and intelligence officials and targeting 30 top military and civilian leaders overall.
There is also an uncomfortable dimension closer to home. As reported by ABC News Australia, Iranian-born Sydney local councillor Tina Kordrostami told a federal parliamentary joint committee on intelligence and security that people with links to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps may have entered Australia as part of the Iranian women's football team's delegation for the Women's Asian Cup, now underway on the Gold Coast. The IRGC has been listed as a terrorist organisation in Australia, raising complex questions about the obligations of sporting diplomacy in a moment of geopolitical rupture.
For Rouhshahbaz, the researcher who tried to hold the contradictions together, the problem with how the world is processing this moment is one of compression. "Just to embody all of these conflicting feelings, so many miles away from your homeland, is something that is being very quickly lost in analysis and politics," she said. "The world is struggling to understand because it's a country that has experienced grief and loss. We're also sitting and looking at our homeland being attacked."
Whether this week becomes a genuine inflection point for Iran's people, or simply the latest chapter in a long tragedy, is something no analyst in Canberra, Washington or Tel Aviv can honestly answer. What is clear is that thousands of Australians with deep roots in that country are watching every update with a phone in one hand and a hollow fear in the other — hoping that the surgery, as Willison described it, does not kill the patient.