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Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) in Israel have once again found themselves on the frontlines of conflict, caught between their livelihoods abroad and safety concerns back home. After the 2025 border tensions escalated, many Filipino caregivers, hotel staff, and service workers were relocated from high‑risk areas, while others chose or were urged to return to the Philippines. Outside the physical threat, the crisis has caused severe emotional and psychological trauma, with the OFWs feeling sirens, protection, being deprived by their employers, and being afraid of death at any moment. They not only need emergency evacuation and logistics to be supported, but also long-term trauma support, livelihood support, and effective government coordination. For insights on fair treatment, legal support, and workplace rights for migrant labourers, visit our Migrant Labour Rights page.
Relocation and Emergency Responses
When the tension escalated, the Philippine government put up contingency measures by its embassy and labour offices and identified the location of the OFWs within the affected areas and negotiated with the Israeli authorities on safer lodging. There were also workers who were relocated out of border communities to comparatively safer cities and those in the most vulnerable locations were provided with repatriation or temporary relocation. Emergency cash, temporary shelter, and transport to points of assembly were major part of the immediate response. To most of the OFWs, however, the relocation process resulted in confusion on what to expect in terms of employment, visa and earnings hence the challenge of leaving or staying was very hard.
Read More: Returned and Overlooked: Challenges Confronting Filipino Migrants Upon Homecoming
Trauma, Mental Health, and Family Anxiety
Psychologically, the effect of working in a war-torn area may be very hard particularly when the migrant employee is very distant to their families. The recurring rocket threats, hearing explosions, and spending most of the time in bomb shelters may cause anxiety, insomnia, post-traumatic stress symptoms. Meanwhile, the families of the Philippines also endure their own trauma where they are attached to the news and thinking about relatives overseas. Good support must hence involve provision of counselling hotlines in Filipino languages, debriefing of the repatriated workers, and community-based mental-health programs once they get back home. Both destigmatization of therapy and entrapment of psychosocial support within standard services provided to OFW are essential.
Government, Agencies, and Future Protection
The 2025 crisis provides an opportunity to the labour agencies and the Philippine government to strengthen the protection mechanisms. That involves a tighter watch on the locations of the OFWs, obligatory use of conflict and safety provisions in the contracts, and the availability of the evacuation and insurance provisions with employers. Pre-departure orientation may be revised to encompass conflict-zone preparedness, mental-health awareness, and information about rights in case of an emergency. On the longer term, this can be achieved through diversifying the markets of deployment of the OFWs, enhancing decent-work opportunities in the Philippines, and developing sustainable reintegration programs which would lead to alleviation of the pressure to the Filipinos to stay in the dangerous environments, simply to sustain their families.
