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Four teenagers have been charged after they allegedly broke into a home in Melbourne's east and confronted the residents inside.

A Kew couple woke about 4am today to find balaclava-clad intruders in their bedroom in Sackville Street.

It's alleged four teenagers broke in through a doggy door before confronting the pair.

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"I screamed, which woke him up, and then we realised another person came into the room and I really started screaming," the female resident told 9News.

The teens are accused of demanding the keys to two Porsches before stealing the woman's phone when she tried to call police.

When police arrived, after her husband managed to raise the alarm, the boys allegedly jumped the back fence, taking off with a phone, jewellery and wallet.

"I kept telling them, 'Don't do this, this is really silly, you steal the car, you will go to jail,'" the female resident claimed.

After a search by the AirWing and Dog Squad, the teens were located in a nearby yard on Bramley Court.

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Four boys, aged 15, 16, 16 and 17, were this afternoon charged with theft of motor vehicle, home invasion and theft.

The teens, all from the Dandenong area, have all been remanded into custody to appear at a children's court at a later date.

Police allege the group arrived in a BMW stolen from Cranbourne West earlier in the night.

The vehicle was towed from the scene in Kew.

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A group of advocates are campaigning for Melbourne's Yarra River to be transformed into a city swimming spot.

But experts say the water quality would need to significantly improve for people to be able to safely take a dip.

The Yarra has a reputation for being brown, a little smelly, and very polluted, and outside of Moomba's Birdman rally, swimming so close to the city is a bit of a no-go.

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It's not just because of the bacteria, but because it's also technically illegal.

That doesn't mean there are a small group of people that would like to see that overturned, however, including Matt Sykes.

Inspired by seeing what Paris did for the Seine River at last year's Olympics, he's campaigning around the world for cities like Melbourne to make their rivers swimmable.

"What we're trying to do is advocate for a Birrarung Marr or a Yarra River swimming trail between Dights Falls and the Bay," the Swimmable Cities co-founder said.

Sykes has been inspired by seeing the saunas in Oslo as well as river floats in Switzerland, but unlike many European cities, including Paris, Melbourne has a problem: stormwater feeds directly into the Yarra River without being treated at all.

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Further upstream, the water quality was so poor today that taking a dip near Kew, Healesville, and the Yarra Junction was not advised.

Professor Tim Fletcher from the University of Melbourne knows all too well how bad things can get if you take a chance with bacteria and things go wrong.

"Having done some wastewater sampling, and I had a little cut in my glove that I didn't see," he said.

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"I ended up in hospital on a drip for 10 days and had to cancel a trip overseas."

The City of Yarra has already signed up to the Swimmable Cities charter, and Sykes hopes the City of Melbourne will be next before the Netherlands hosts the world-first Swimmable Cities summit.

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An Australian Defence Force (ADF) officer has lost his high-level security clearance due to his loyalty to Israel.

The Army Reserve officer, known in documents as HWMW, is an Australian citizen and Jewish man who first joined the ADF in 2004.

He has held an NV2 security clearance since 2010 — the second-highest clearance that includes access to classified resources up to and including "top secret".

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Australia's intelligence agency ASIO conducted two security assessment interviews and two written questionnaires from October 2020 to April 2023, in which HWMW stated he would hand over classified or sensitive information to Israel if asked, felt a sense of "natural solidarity" with Israel and does not view Israel as a foreign government.

He also intentionally withheld information on two training courses he attended in Israel in February 2016 and February 2019.

ASIO found HWMW was vulnerable to influence or coercion in acts of espionage or foreign interference and concluded that he had "demonstrated a higher level of loyalty to Israel than to the Australian government".

"ASIO assesses this demonstrates [HWMW's] loyalty to Israel outweighs his obligations to the Australian government as a security clearance holder," ASIO assessments found, according to Administrative Review Tribunal documents.

ASIO Director-General Mike Burgess issued an adverse security assessment on June 3, 2023.

HWMW's security clearance was revoked, which ASIO admitted may negatively affect his ongoing employment due to the type of information and roles he can be subject to and future employment within the Australian government.

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HWMW did not agree with the assessment and requested a review by the Administrative Review Tribunal, arguing he had served 19 years with the Army and acted within the requirements of his security clearance.

"…Under no circumstances would I conduct espionage or assist the [Israel intelligence service] whilst I am wearing the ADF uniform," he said, according to tribunal documents.

The Administrative Review Tribunal heard from both sides and, in its decision published last week, supported and affirmed the ASIO assessment.

"We are satisfied the information contained in the security assessment is correct and correctly represented, and we are satisfied it is reasonably relevant to the requirements of security in respect of risks of espionage and acts of foreign interference," the tribunal found.

The tribunal noted it did not make findings into whether HWMW has been disloyal to the Australian government but rather his divided loyalties between his obligations in his role and his faith and cultural identity.

9news.com.au has contacted the ADF for comment.

ASIO has refused to comment on individual cases.

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