MANILA, Philippines — The crisis alert level in the West Bank may be raised in a few days due to the rising tension between Israel and Hamas, Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Eduardo de Vega said on Wednesday.
“It’s still on Alert Level 2 but it may rise and go up in the next few days. Actually, I don’t want it to go up because that would mean that the tension is going up and we don’t want the tension to go up,” de Vega said.
De Vega earlier disclosed that there are at least 122 Filipinos in the West Bank, one of two designated Palestinian-occupied territories, the other being the Gaza Strip.
“But our embassy is working as if it’s alert level 3, meaning [they are] inviting the Filipinos to be repatriated as soon as they can,” he added.
The foreign affairs official said only four out of the 122 Filipinos in the West Bank have so far expressed their wish to be repatriated.
“One reason [that] they don’t wanna go home is economic reasons, they want to stay,” he added.