Escape from Tel Aviv!

In the early morning of June 17, Tuesday, when the sun was gentle, and the rockets and missiles were momentarily silent, journalist Alex Vergara was in a van headed for Amman, Jordan from Tel Aviv, Israel — then on its fifth day of a devastating war with Iran.

- JOANNE RAE M. RAMIREZ

Just a few hours before sunrise, he was hunkered in a bunker.

He was on his way home to the Philippines after four nights of mad dashes to bomb shelters, countless alarms and little sleep. He was on his way home after being at the epicenter of "Operation Rising Lion." He was in the Israeli capital, Tel Aviv.

But would he even make it to the border of Israel and Jordan?

Dream fulfilled in Jerusalem

Alex, PeopleAsia's features editor, was invited by Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs through its embassy in Manila to cover the "Israel Pride," which included a visit to historic Jerusalem, meetings with the LGBT+ community and the Pride parade on June 13, Friday.

On June 10, Alex was on a tour of the Old City of Jerusalem, a rocket of joy because it was, to him, a fulfillment of his late father's dream.

"I sort of fulfilled it for him, as I'm the only one so far in our family who has been privileged enough to go there," recalls Alex.

"Stepping foot on Israel, the Holy Land for most of us, where three of the world's major religions now intersect, was beyond my wildest dreams," Alex wrote in a Facebook post, concluding it with these words, "I'm making this trip for you, Dad!"

It was also in Jerusalem that Alex had a foretaste of going to a "safe" or "Protected Area," Israel's euphemism for a bomb shelter.