DFA says Pinoys in Tel Aviv prefer to stay despite tensions

The Department of Foreign Affairs on Saturday advised Filipinos in Israel and Iran as well as their relatives here in the Philippines to stay calm and not panic after the agency raised Alert Level 3, paving the way for voluntary repatriation, noting that there have been several “misinformation” posts on social media.

Foreign Affairs Assistant Secretary Robert Ferrer said: “The ones panicking are the relatives here in the Philippines. They (Filipinos in Israel and Iran) are the ones reassuring their relatives back here.”

“It is as if the Filipinos there are hardened. They treat these missile attacks as super typhoons. They are vigilant, but after, it’s okay and life goes on.”

“If you ask most of our Filipinos in Tel Aviv, they are calm, they don’t want to go home. They believe in the Israeli system to protect them, to take care of them,” Ferrer added.

Under Alert Level 3, “all overseas Filipinos in Israel and Iran are enjoined to return to the Philippines.”

“Travel by Filipinos to both these countries is highly discouraged, due to the ongoing crisis and the actual closure of their air space and seaports,” the DFA said in its advisory.

Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Eduardo Jose De Vega added that all Filipino diplomats at the Philippine Embassy in Tehran will stay in Iran to continue monitoring and assisting the situation.

At present, there are a total of nine diplomats at the embassy, including Philippine Ambassador Robert Manalo.

The DFA said the majority of around 1,200 Filipinos living and working in Iran are married to Iranian citizens while only over a dozen are workers. Nine have so far requested to be repatriated.

“We are considering all the possible safe border exits from Iran. Tehran is now almost like a ghost town and many have left, including Filipinos,” Ferrer said.

There are over 30,000 Filipinos in Israel, of which at least 191 have requested to be repatriated.

De Vega said the first 26 repatriates from Israel are scheduled to return to the Philippines next week.

Israel’s war with Iran rages for a second week, with Israel’s military saying on Saturday it killed three Iranian commanders and struck Iran’s Isfahan nuclear site for a second time.

Israeli “fighter jets struck and eliminated in the area of Qom the commander of the Palestine Corps of the Quds Force, and the key coordinator between the Iranian regime and the Hamas terrorist organization, Saeed Izadi,” the military said in a statement.

The Quds Force is the foreign operations arm of Iran’s powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

A military official also told reporters during a briefing Saturday that Israel had killed two other Iranian commanders overnight, Behnam Shahriyari and Aminpour Judaki.

Israel targeted “two centrifuge production sites” at Iran’s Isfahan nuclear facility overnight in a second wave of strikes on the location since the start of the war, a military official said.

“Isfahan we targeted in the first 24 hours of our operation, but we carried out a second wave of strikes there overnight, deepening our achievements and advancing the damage to the facility,” the military official told reporters during a briefing on condition of anonymity.

The repeated raids by the Israeli air force have “dealt a severe blow to Iran’s centrifuge production capabilities,” the official added.

Police in Iran’s Qom province said 22 people “linked to Israeli spy services” had been arrested since June 13.

Citing the head of police intelligence in Iran’s Qom province, Fars news agency reported that “22 people were identified and arrested on charges of being linked to the Zionist regime’s spy services, disturbing public opinion and supporting the criminal regime.” With AFP