Over 300 OFWs near Gaza Strip marked themselves safe in DMW online survey
A total of 313 Filipinos living near the Gaza Strip have informed Philippine authorities that they are safe amid the spate of bomb attacks and gun battles in the area as Israel has further escalated its air and ground offensives in response to the attacks carried out by Hamas fighters over the weekend.
DMW officer-in-charge Undersecretary Hans Leo Cacdac said that as soon as Israel declared that it was on a state of war, they immediately sent electronic mails (e-mails) to all the overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) that are present near the Gaza Strip side of Israel based on their data.
“We emailed because we do have the email addresses of OFWs in Israel so we put out a Google survey through the emails of the OFWs and 313 had already responded from the affected areas and have marked themselves safe in the affected areas where there’s an approximately around 300 plus OFWs,” said Cacdac in a press briefing at the Malacanang Palace.
“When I say affected areas, I mean to say the southern part of Israel that is close to the Gaza Strip border,” he added.
There are around 30,500 Filipinos in Israel and based on the data of the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA), 95 percent of them are not situated in the southern areas of Israel, or near the Gaza Strip.
Most of the Filipinos are in Tel-Aviv, Jerusalem and Haifa.
Since the fighting erupted in Israel over the weekend, the DMW and the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) put up a task force that operate 24/7 to regularly monitor the condition of the OFWs.
Citing their data, Cacdac said a total of 83 requests for assistance have been received so far— 76 of them were already responded to while seven more are still for checking.
Cacdac said they will also send at least two officials of the agency to proceed to Israel to checkl on the status of an OFW who was hospitalized after being grazed by bullet on the right arm.
“They were also tasked to visit the rescue areas or centers that have been put up by the Israeli government,” said Cacdac.
“So, the effort continues and with respect to our dear OFWs and hopefully the situation on the ground will get better and we have a more peaceful resolutions to the current conflicts so that our OFWs can resume their work,” he added.