Sirens, rocket blasts too much for OFW
When Hamas attacked, Meniado said he heard for the first time the sirens and explosions that would traumatize him
Daily TribuneWhen Hamas attacked, Meniado said he heard for the first time the sirens and explosions that would traumatize him
An overseas Filipino worker, who was among the fourth batch of repatriates to Manila from Israel, said he remains traumatized by the 7 October attack by the terrorist group Hamas.
Hamas killed 1,400 civilians, mostly Israelis, and some foreigners, including at least four Filipinos, during that bloody, cross-border incursion from the Gaza Strip into Israel.
"I get easily nervous," said hotel worker and Isabela native Jay Meniado. "When at work, I panicked just hearing helicopters and seeing the soldiers aboard their vehicles while on patrol."
Meniado was among the 60 OFWs whom the Department of Migrant Workers and the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration brought home from Israel last Monday, 30 October. Two infants were in the batch, bringing the repatriate count to 62.
He said he decided to grab the government's repatriation offer just seven months into his job in Israel because he could not sleep anymore, fearing the thousands of rockets that Hamas was launching.
"I was always afraid, thinking a missile would land on our place while I was asleep," he said upon arrival at the airport. While Israel has been pounding the Gaza Strip from the air and ground, Hamas continues to fire rockets into Israel.
Meniado said that while he did not work near the communities where Hamas machine-gunned, and decapitated civilians, the rockets and the warning sirens had proven too much for him.
He said he first heard the sirens and explosions that "traumatized" him on 7 October, when Hamas attacked Israeli villages near Gaza from the air, land, and sea.
"On that day, we had come all the way from Eliat when the sirens blared. They were so loud, and me and my friends in the apartment got nervous," he recounted, adding that they then ran to the nearest bomb shelter.
"When the sirens sounded for the third time, we were told to take our things. We were lucky because the flat we lived in was not hit by a rocket. Running, I met an old Israeli who told me it was safer to hide under the stairs, and so me and my companions did that," he said.
DMW Officer-in-Charge Hans Leo Cacdac welcomed the repatriates, along with officials of OWWA, the Department of Social Welfare and Development, and the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority.
