16 Pinoy refugees from Gaza Strip arrive in Manila

MANILA, Philippines — Sixteen of 17 Filipinos who were evacuated from Gaza are now in the Philippines, a report said Friday. A report by dzBB radio's Nimfa Ravelo said the 16 arrived at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport in Manila at 7:05 p.m. on board Thai Airways Flight TG-624 from Bangkok. The 16 included three Filipino mothers and 13 children. The women were married to Palestinian men, who were left behind as they were barred from leaving troubled Gaza Strip. An earlier report by the Philippine ambassador in Thailand, Antonio Rodriguez, said the 16 arrived in Bangkok at about 1 p.m. from a Jordanian Airways flight from Amman, Jordan. They then took a flight for Manila after a brief stopover. Rodriguez said the 16 Filipino evacuees were accompanied by Roy Cimatu, Philippine special ambassador to the Middle East. Reports said the 16 were to be taken to shelter of the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) for debriefing before they would be sent to their respective homes in the Philippines. The 17th Filipino refugee to make it out of Gaza Strip was a nun. She was placed by Filipino diplomats in Israel under the care of a Latin patriarch in Jerusalem. The Filipinos who opted to leave were among 250 foreign nationals who were evacuated by the Red Cross. On Thursday night, the Philippine ambassador to Israel, Petronila Garcia, said 91 Filipinos were still in Gaza, which continues to be rocked by fighting between Israeli and Hamas ground troops. She said the 91 opted to stay either because they did not want to leave their Palestinian families or they were afraid to get caught in the crossfire. Their evacuation, first scheduled last Monday, was twice called off because of heavy shelling, explosions and gunfire in Gaza. After getting approval of the Israeli government, Philippine Embassy officials plucked the 17 Filipinos out of their homes in central Gaza during lulls in heavy fighting, bringing them by bus to the Erez border crossing – the only exit where frantic foreigners were allowed to leave en masse. They traveled to the Allenby Crossing in the Jordan-Israel border en route to Amman, Jordan. In Geneva, the International Committee of the Red Cross said one of its convoys came under Israeli fire at the Netzarim crossing during the three-hour lull in fighting Thursday. One driver was lightly injured. Israel's ambassador to Manila, Zvi Vapni, said his country's air and ground strikes were being done in self-defense. It was not clear when the hostilities, which has killed more than 700 people, will end. "The Hamas organization backed by Iran and Syria has been attacking Israel in the last three years by daily launching of rockets from within the Gaza strip. All our attempts to stop this war crime, this act of sheer terror, did not succeed," Vapni said in a statement. - Kimberly Jane Tan, GMANews.TV