11,000 OFWs in Lebanon brace as Israel pushes deeper into south; DMW keeps Alert Level 3

Roughly 11,000 overseas Filipino workers in Lebanon, most of them domestic workers based in Beirut, remain under Alert Level 3 — voluntary repatriation — as the Israel Defense Forces escalated their ground campaign in southern Lebanon over the weekend, capturing Beaufort Castle and pushing across the Litani River near the Hezbollah stronghold of Nabatieh.

Department of Migrant Workers Secretary Hans Leo Cacdac has continued to urge Filipinos in Lebanon to sign up for government-arranged repatriation, with the Department of Foreign Affairs and the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration coordinating chartered flights and land-sea evacuation routes given limited Middle East airspace. By May 23, Cacdac said the total number of Filipinos brought home from the Middle East since the February 28 outbreak of the US-Israel-Iran war had passed 10,012, the bulk of them OFWs and their dependents. In April, the DMW and OWWA requested an additional ₱22 billion in combined supplemental funding to sustain repatriation in a worst-case scenario.

Returning OFWs from Lebanon are entitled under previously announced DMW-OWWA programs to ₱150,000 in cash assistance, with ₱75,000 from the DMW Action Fund supporting immediate reintegration. Most OFWs in Lebanon, however, have so far chosen to stay despite the program, with domestic-work contracts and employer arrangements often making voluntary departure logistically difficult.

The ground escalation follows a brittle mid-April Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire that has been broken by intermittent attacks since, including a Hezbollah drone strike that killed an Israeli soldier last week. Israel seized the 12th-century Beaufort Castle, which sits atop a strategic hill near Nabatieh — a site the IDF previously held from 1982 until withdrawing in 2000. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement Sunday that he had instructed the military to “expand its ground manoeuvre in Lebanon.” Iran has condemned the operations, with Tehran’s broader position holding that the Iran-US ceasefire framework covers Lebanon and any violation on one front breaks it on all. Negotiations between Washington and Tehran over a 60-day ceasefire extension and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz remained in motion through the weekend, with no rupture announced.

Lebanon hosts a smaller Filipino community than the principal Middle East destinations of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Kuwait, but the ~11,000-strong OFW concentration in Beirut places the country squarely within the DMW’s active crisis-response footprint. Cacdac said emotional ties and financial reasons remain the primary factors keeping most of the 11,000 OFWs in Lebanon in place despite the program. The DMW’s standing framework places mass-repatriation triggers at Alert Level 4, and Cacdac said the government is prepared to escalate efforts if the conflict worsens.