ME war worsens but OFWs staying

It is the overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) themselves who are opposing proposals that the government raise to critical level 4 the situation in Lebanon even as the Middle East conflict worsens since it would mean their mandatory repatriation.

Filipino diplomats said government operations are consistent with a level 4 situation except that it has not been applied yet.

Despite the worsening situation, the government has refrained from elevating the alert status to Level 4, which would require all Filipinos to leave Lebanon.

The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) has urged Filipinos in the Middle Eastern country to avail of the government’s repatriation program as the threat of an “all-out war” looms.

In a news forum on Saturday, Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Eduardo de Vega said that since the Israel-Gaza conflict began on 7 October last year, the government has been organizing voluntary repatriation programs to bring Filipinos home.

“Since the hostilities in Israel and Gaza [began] last October, we were already calling on them to come home voluntarily and take advantage of the offer. Thus far only over 500 have returned. And now, there are about another 500 but the numbers change by the day, sometimes it is reduced,” he said.

There are over 11,000 Filipinos in Lebanon. The DFA indicated that 1,500 of them have expressed a desire to return home with 500 waiting to be repatriated.

De Vega said Filipinos in Lebanon choose to stay because they are committed to their employers and feel safe from attacks, either from Hezbollah or Israel.

Currently, the airport in the capital Beirut remains open despite tensions in the region. However, only one airline is servicing the country, Middle East Airlines.

“We are booking flights there to connect and then connecting to whoever [is] accepted. We expect over a hundred minimum by the end of the month,” De Vega said, referring to the repatriation process.

Israel has issued evacuation advisories for over 20 areas in southern Lebanon, similar to the warnings given before its operations in Gaza.

Conflict intensified

The conflict intensified when Iran launched over 200 ballistic missiles at Israel last Tuesday, in retaliation for Israeli strikes on Hezbollah positions in Lebanon.

Concerned about the growing violence, the Philippine government has called for a peaceful dialogue and urged all parties to de-escalate the conflict.

Foreign Affairs Secretary Enrique Manalo said contingency plans are in place for the safety of Filipinos in Lebanon.

De Vega said the DFA is not yet planning to elevate the status in Lebanon to Alert Level 4 in consideration of the Filipinos who are there.

Some Filipinos workers have their families there and consider Lebanon their home.

For his part, Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Middle East Office Marlo Miranda said raising Alert Level 4 will affect Filipinos there.

“There’s no need to raise the alert level to four, the very highest [level],” he said.

“There’s another group of OFWs who don’t want Alert Level 4 to be raised because that would eventually mean they won’t be able to return to Lebanon after their repatriation,” he added.

He noted that the Philippine Embassy in Beirut is operating in an Alert Level 4 situation and stands ready to assist Filipinos and their families.

On the other hand, De Vega backed Miranda, saying it was only “practical” to go to Alert Level 4 with the cooperation of governments in the region.

He cited cases of Filipinos who wished to go home but were unable to do so because their Philippine passports were being held by their employers.

But he brushed off these concerns, saying the DFA and the DMW were more than capable of bringing these Filipinos home.

“We can do [it without a] passport, we can always issue travel documents for them to come home,” he said.

De Vega instructed the country’s ambassador in Lebanon to ascertain if the Filipino workers want to come home.

“We will pay whatever is needed for their exit clearances,” he said.

Targeted attacks

Meanwhile, Miranda said the recent attacks in Lebanon were targeted, including the explosions of 3,000 pagers and handheld radios of Hezbollah fighters.

He explained the original conflict involved only Gaza and Israel which have been in a civil war since 1982 due to political and religious issues.

“What happened in 1982 was that in order for Israel to stop the Palestinians who became refugees living in Lebanon and stop Palestinian terrorist attacks on Israel, [Israel] entered Beirut and tried to eliminate those forces of the Palestinian Liberation Organization in 1982. So there the force of Hezbollah came into effect,” he said.

Methods considered

While the DFA aims to use commercial flights to repatriate the Filipinos, the agency is also looking for alternatives such as sea and land travel.

“The embassy is working on repatriation by sea. But there are commercial flights still, so let’s take advantage of that,” De Vega said.

The use of C-130 military planes has been brought up to bring the Filipinos home but, according to De Vega, this is not yet an option.

“Military planes, the C-130, it’s very complicated because it would have to make many stops. To reach Lebanon, it will have to make many stops to get there, [maybe] three or so,” he said.

The DFA is monitoring the situation in Israel as Iran has joined the conflict. It also called for a ceasefire so that other nations could also attend to their citizens in distress.

“Realistically, let’s wait and see because Israel still has an unmet objective. Unless somebody or an entity can prevail upon Israel to say enough, go to a ceasefire, and your objectives, you don’t have to meet them all, then it will stop,” De Vega said.

“We also can’t say that Iran has stopped, we still don’t know,” he added.

De Vega urged the Filipinos to continue monitoring government advisories, including those issued by the host country.

“If you want to go home, we will help you. As always, we need prayers and hope for the best. We’re proud of our countrymen because they are resilient, we’re always proud [of you],” he said.

The government is set to repatriate Filipinos who were unable to return home on 26 September due to multiple flight cancellations from Lebanon.

According to De Vega, the DMW and OWWA will announce the scheduled return of Pinoys on multiple flights.

“Starting as early as 11 October, I think, the earliest. But don’t expect [that] they will all arrive at the same time. Those flights may be divided into 20 [passengers per flight], two flights of 10s and two flights of 30s. They have been scheduled,” he said.

War turns one year

Israel marks the first anniversary Monday of the devastating 7 October Hamas attack that sparked the Gaza war and has now engulfed neighboring Lebanon, creating a perilous regional crisis.

President Isaac Herzog will lead a memorial service at Sderot, one of the cities hardest hit during the attack by Palestinian militants.

A rally calling for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip will be held at Kibbutz Beeri, where more than 100 people were killed on 7 October.

A memorial is also planned at Kibbutz Reim, the site of the Nova music festival where militants murdered hundreds of people.

In Israel’s commercial hub Tel Aviv, events are being organized from Sunday, with families of hostages still held in Gaza planning a demonstration to demand their release.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to deliver a televised address to the nation on Monday, although details of official events to mark the painful anniversary remain unclear.

On 7 October 2023, Hamas militants stormed across the border from Gaza into Israel in what would become the deadliest attack in the country’s history.

That day, at the end of the Jewish holiday of Sukkot, the militants launched their assault by land, air, and sea.

A year later, the confirmed death toll from the attack, including hostages killed in captivity, has reached 1,205 on the Israeli side, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

Militants abducted 251 hostages on 7 October, 97 of whom are still held captive in Gaza, including 33 the Israeli military has said are dead.

Hamas fighters stormed army bases, kibbutzim, and the music festival, with at least 370 people killed at the Nova festival alone.

The war in Lebanon and Gaza now threatens to spread after Iran fired some 200 missiles at Israel on 1 October, its second such direct attack on the country in six months.

Iran said it launched the barrage in retaliation for the killings of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas leader who was killed in Tehran in July.

Iran and Hamas blame Israel for Haniyeh’s death, but Israel has not commented.

“The resistance in the region will not back down with these martyrdoms and will win,” Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in a rare sermon on Friday.