As the Islamic holy month of Ramadan rounds its first week, Palestinian refugees in the Philippines continue to face an uncertain future. Those who fled the war in Gaza find themselves scattered across Metro Manila, handed from one group to the next, and desperate to gain back a sense of peace and normalcy.

While a ceasefire was agreed upon in early 2025, hope for the Gazans in the Philippines remains tenuous.

In Quezon City, a little under a dozen Palestinian families are staying in one of the city’s major subdivisions, crammed together into a compound owned by a Filipino sympathetic to their plight.

“We are about ten to eleven families here. There are more in Cavite,” shared Dr. Hamza (real name withheld upon request), a university professor from Gaza. “Our lease lasts only until March. Beyond that, we don’t know where we’ll go.”

When the war started, Hamza and his family were among the dozens of families evacuated from Gaza by the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA), which initially only wanted to evacuate their wives who were Filipino citizens. “They only wanted to bring the women back to the Philippines,” said Hamza wryly, “but they (our wives), said they won’t get on the planes unless we were taken with them”

By then, wide-scale bombardment over Eastern Gaza had started, targeting residential houses, schools, and hospitals.

Hamza, who lived in Eastern Gaza, recalled seeing the news break out on October 7, the first day of the siege.

“I remember the bombs hitting. It hit apartment buildings near ours. When the shells started getting closer to our house, I finally called a friend in the western part of the city to see if he had a place available to shelter us. We moved immediately that afternoon. Others were not as lucky as us,” he recalled.

Not long after, the entirety of Gaza was being leveled. During one routine grocery run, Hamza’s son, Hassan, was struck by a bomb that landed near the store. “I was frantic. I tried calling his mobile phone but got no answer. I didn’t know what to do.” Hours later, Hassan returned home, slightly injured.

Realizing that nowhere was safe, they decided to move west, near the coast. There, he met up with Abdullah, an engineer friend who was also married to a Filipino.

Fleeing Gaza

Those who are already familiar with Israel’s regular bombardment of Palestinian cities thought it would at least be like the wars in the past. But the conflict that started in October was different—fiercer, more indiscriminate.

“Back then, when they [Israeli Forces] would drop bombs, they would announce it in advance as a warning for people to evacuate. Now, there’s no warning,” said Hamza. When the conflict started in October 2023, people in Gaza had little idea it would turn into one of the worst humanitarian crises to hit Palestine, a land already pockmarked by a century of genocide and colonial rule.

“One bomb landed directly on our building,” said Abdullah, Hamza’s friend in west Gaza. “My family was inside the building at the time.” The bomb took the lives of 25 of Abdullah’s family. Like Hamza, he decided then that it was time to leave.

Hamza and Abdullah share a close tie to the Philippines, having previously lived in the country. Abdullah got his engineering degree from Emilio Aguinaldo College, while Hamza completed his at the University of Sto. Tomas. Both laughed as they recalled their time in Manila, sharing a brief moment of levity.

When the DFA finally agreed to let Palestinians fly into the Philippines, both Hamza and Abdullah’s families took the long and arduous journey to an Egyptian holding camp across the border, where they had to wait to be processed.

Out there, they said, they truly realized what they were leaving behind. Jobs, family, businesses, lives.

Life in Manila

Upon arriving in the Philippines, the families were checked into a hotel in Pasay, to wait until a place was available for them to move into. Various non-profits and people’s organizations managed to find the Palestinians a place in Marikina, where after a month, they were asked to leave due to rumors of alleged communists helping them.

“People said it was dangerous to stay in Marikina. They said the police were watching. That the people helping us were leftists or rebel sympathizers,” said Hamza. They eventually ended up in Quezon City, where students from the University of the Philippines, various charity groups, and private citizens helped hold fund-raising events to support Palestinian families.

Placeless and dispossessed, those fleeing from the ravages of conflict in Gaza now find themselves in a different, but likewise insidious war in Manila. They became entangled in local politics, torn between various political and ideological groups. Police intelligence, the Palestinians say, were watching them closely, aware of who they talk to and who talks to them. Similarly, they now find it hard to trust just anyone willing to provide help, fearing that they will lose what little government sympathy they have left or be used as political pawns.

“We do not want to get involved in any more conflict, we just want peace,” he said with exasperation and fear.

Fatima and Mariam, Filipinos both married to Palestinian husbands, shared the life they left behind in Gaza. “We never really felt like outsiders in Gaza, they were welcoming to us from the beginning.” Fatima and Mariam, along with dozens of other Filipinos, were instrumental in convincing the DFA to allow the Palestinians to fly to the Philippines. “Gaza was a peaceful place unlike how the media portrays it. We don’t have sectarian violence. We don’t look at people based on their religion. Christians lived next to Muslims and vice versa. We were all brothers and sisters.”

“Some of Christianity’s oldest churches can be found in Gaza. Now all those churches have been destroyed by Israeli air strikes,” agreed Hamza.

Uncertain future

Near the end of January 2025, a ceasefire deal was reached by Hamas and Israeli forces, which allowed the displaced Palestinians to finally return to their homes after a 15-month siege. The deal also sparked a cautious hope for Gazans in the Philippines for a chance to go back to the families they left behind.

“Of course, we want to go back and rebuild, but now there’s also Trump and the whole business of converting Gaza into a resort,” said Hamza. Donald Trump, upon winning his presidential bid in the 2024 United States election, was transparent about his plans to strengthen US-Israeli partnership. Trump went as far as expressing his wish to buy Gazan land and turn them into resorts.

In the wake of the US elections and the outsized support of Israeli political capital by a far-right government in Washington, the Palestinians also expressed worry about their legal status in the Philippines, a close US and Israeli ally. As it stands, they do not have official asylum status, despite making pleas to government officials and the Department of Justice. “They still haven’t responded. We’ve gone so far as to ask the help of senators, but we get no reply.”

Inside the compound that housed Hamza, Abdullah, Fatima, and Mariam, families try to rebuild a sense of normalcy of their own. Their apartment units thrum with the minutiae of everyday life. Children come and go, dressed in school uniforms, with parents ushering them or giving them chores to do. Outside the gate, a tricycle tuk-tuk blares, carrying supplies for a Middle Eastern food stall run by one of the Palestinians.

This March, the lease for their apartment ends. Funds from donations and charity drives have also dried up, leaving the Palestinians in limbo. While their brethren in Palestine begin the process of rebuilding, the Palestinians in the Philippines brace themselves for an uncertain future.

And across the ocean, over 9,000 kilometers away, those in Gaza break their Ramadan fast every evening, surrounded by rubble and dirt. Similarly, the Gazans in Manila break theirs, with Palestinian food and Filipino snacks. Both are trying to negotiate a trauma spanning generations. Both trying to nurse hope for a better future.

All names have been changed to hide the identities of those mentioned in the article. Certain details have also been changed to better hide their identities. All stories are told as they were narrated by the Palestinians.