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Evacuation of Pinoys in Gaza far from over – envoy
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by danesller0127 | January 10, 2009 at 02:35 pm
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According to Philippine Ambassador to Israel, Petronela Garcia, "Effort will continue in succeding days to evacuate Flipino nationals who decided to leave Gaza. Some Filipinos not wanting to leave husbands and childrens behind." ...."The are hoping to let calm be restored and resume their lives.Concerns such as these are holding them back and course the security," garcia said."
Situation fluid and dangerous" Embassy officials are still waiting for developements to extract filipino nationals....
Deputy Presidential Spokesperson Lorelei Fajardo said the government has advised Filipinos to move to safer grounds. Fajardo said President Arroyo is regularly updated on developments in Israel and Gaza.
RESCUING Filipinos from the war-ton Gaza Strip is far from over, a Department of Foreign Affairs official said yesterday.
The Philippines is still closely monitoring the situation in the Hamas-governed Gaza, said Esteban Conejos Jr., Foreign Affairs Undersecretary for Migrant Workers Affairs.
Hamas has been the target of the Israeli’s intense military assaults in retaliation to the former’s rocket attacks on Israel.
“As soon as we see an opening, we’ll be looking forward to evacuate them [Filipinos],” Conejos said in an interview with Vice President Noli de Castro over DZMM radio.
Conejos made the statement just after 16 Filipinos evacuated from Gaza arrived in Manila Friday night.
He said that a number of Palestinians went into the Philippines in the late 80s and early 90s to study and that probably explains the 20 Filipinas married to Palestinians and staying in the embattled territory.
Of the 108 Filipinos in Gaza, only 17 of them, consisting of three Filipina mothers and their children and a nun, were able to join the Canadian-led evacuation to Amman, Jordan. The nun was reported to be left under the care of a patriarch in Jerusalem, while the other 16 took Royal Jordanian Airlines flight RJ180 to Bangkok.
Sen. Loren Legarda urged the Philippine government to add its voice to the clamor from many countries for the immediate cessation of hostilities between Israelis and Palestinians.
“Peace and stability in the Middle East is a concern of all countries because oil prices can shoot up if the fighting there would escalate,” Legarda said.
Meanwhile, DFA undersecretary Esteban Conejos Jr. reported that as early as November last year, the Filipino families in Gaza were already warned by DFA on the danger of another Israel-Hamas conflict. It seemed that with the six-month ceasefire, the Filipino community in Gaza became complacent, Conejos said.
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danesller0127
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at 08:48 on January 11th, 2009
Latest News! Updated on: Sunday, January 11, 2008 (18:26 Mecca Time, 15:26 GMT)
Israel advances on Gaza City: Warning of 'widening offensive' given to Gazans as assault continues into 16th day.... (http://english.aljazeera.net/)