Travel advisory to Israel, Gaza issued

MANILA, Philippines - The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) yesterday issued a travel advisory urging Filipinos to defer travel to Gaza and Israel amid the armed conflict in the Gaza Strip.

While a ceasefire between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas, which controls Gaza, was announced in Cairo after the latest wave of violence, the Israeli embassy in Manila said on Thursday that Israel will not tolerate rocket attacks on its citizens.

“Due to the ongoing armed conflict between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, the DFA strongly advises Filipinos to defer travel to Gaza and central and southern Israel,” the advisory said.

The Philippines had earlier deployed two Rapid Response Teams to Israel and Egypt to augment personnel in the Philippine embassies in Tel Aviv and Cairo and help in the mapping operation being done by the embassies to find out the exact location of the 120 Filipinos in Gaza Strip and to prepare for possible evacuation.

According to the DFA, most of the Filipinos in Gaza are married to Palestinians and will not leave if their spouses would not come with them.

The DFA said the 41,000 Filipinos in Israel, mostly caregivers, are safe and they have not been so far affected by the mortar attacks coming from the other side.

Yaniv Revach, deputy chief of mission of the Israeli embassy in Manila, expressed optimism about the ceasefire but warned that conflict may escalate anytime.

“I’m very optimistic the situation will be solved but the next conflict is behind the corner. So the people of Israel said we expect our government to stop them from firing rockets toward Israel and we declared a ceasefire but even after we declared a ceasefire more than 40 rockets were launched toward Israel during the night,” Revach told The STAR.

Deployment ban to Saudi stays

Meanwhile, the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) yesterday said that the ban on the deployment of domestic helpers to Saudi Arabia stays.

Labor Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz said the government would not resume processing of new household service workers (HSW) until the Saudi government has put a system ensuring compliance with the new standard employment contract providing the minimum monthly salary of $400 for HSWs.

Baldoz noted that the governments of Saudi and the Philippines have agreed on the implementation of a new standard employment contract that would pave the way for resumption of the deployment of HSWs to Saudi.

Last year, the Saudi government stopped the Philippines from implementing the mandatory verification of employment contracts for newly hired HSWs.

The move prompted the Philippine government to stop the deployment of domestic helpers to Saudi Arabia.

Meanwhile, a group of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) in the Middle East is confused over whether the government has resumed the deployment of OFWs to Saudi Arabia. – Mayen Jaymalin