In mid-2024, as the genocide in Gaza intensified, a number of local Filipinos in Siargao began to show their support for a free Palestine in small ways. Some covered over Israeli stickers posted in public spaces with their own Free Palestine messages. Others talked about holding a protest event—a plan that fizzled out. A few began to be vocal on social media, linking their views understanding of Israel’s treatment of Palestine to a growing list of Israeli tourist abuses in Siargao.
They were met with confusion at best, and hostility at worst. Siargao’s tourist establishments include several owned and operated by Israeli nationals, and Israelis made up a growing segment of the island’s tourists. Any denunciation of Israel’s violence in Gaza was bound to draw attention from Israeli business owners and tourists, as well as local government officials and business owners concerned with how these criticisms might affect Siargao’s image.
Locals in Siargao know tourism to be a volatile mistress. Today the island is finally recovering from the one-two punch of the COVID-19 pandemic and Super Typhoon Odette in 2021. In the aftermath of both disasters, Siargao has once again returned to its reliance on tourism as a primary economic driver.
This dependence on tourism influenced the island’s rebuilding, orienting Siargao’s infrastructure to ease visitor experience. Today Siargao’s roads are modern and cemented, allowing fleets of transport vans to whisk tourists from the airport to the beach town of General Luna, the epicenter of tourist life. There, “Tourist Road” is lined with restobars, cafes, and souvenir shops, and crowds of tourists navigate the scene on foot and on rented motor scooters.
As with places defined by tourism, Siargao’s rapid development in the last decade had given rise to inevitable tensions between displaced locals, enterprising outsiders, and entitled tourists, and conflicts over whose vision of the future would dictate Siargao’s path. Not everyone is happy with how tourism has changed life on the island. Beach access is blocked by the construction of resorts. Longtime residents complain that their access to water and electricity residential connections are delayed in favor of commercial clients building resort hotels for transient guests. The disposal of trash is a critical problem.
In early 2025, this growing local discontent about tourism development and its displacements in Siargao collided with continuing news about worsening conditions in Gaza and the arrival of what locals noted were a distinctly new set of Israeli tourists.
Soon after Israel’s military campaign in Gaza began, Siargao had increasingly become a destination of choice for young Israelis finishing a stint in the military. David Haldane, reporting for the Manila Times, quotes Elazar Moshe, 24, an Israel Defense Forces soldier vacationing in Siargao: “We come for fun, quiet, and rest, especially after the war… We are all soldiers, so after our service we come for vacation.” Local Filipinos report that Israeli business owners in Siargao actively funneled Israeli tourists to the island through their networks. Most recently, these tourists happen to be soldiers fresh from military campaigns in Gaza.
Siargao’s residents noticed.
For several months, service staff in the town of General Luna, the tourism epicenter of the island, had been sharing stories about Israeli tourist maltreatment among themselves. Many had felt too intimidated to voice their concern and anger in public. One local Filipina described the expectations of ex-soldiers coming to Siargao as a therapeutic holiday, with local Siargao residents taking the brunt of their “trauma-dumping.”
In March 2025, posts about patterns of Israeli tourist harassment and abuse began to appear publicly in the Siargao Business Association Facebook page, a virtual public forum that reaches over 80,000 followers. The majority of posts described Israeli tourists not paying for their food—“they suddenly disappeared when our establishment is super busy attending other guest[s]”—or behaving arrogantly—“taking seats in restaurants without ordering…and getting angry when asked to vacate for paying guests” and threatening to leave negative reviews, or “calling a filipino staffs a ‘SLAVE.’” Arguably, these kinds of behaviors are not unusual in an industry that positions paying guests above serving “hosts.”
Some conflicts turned violent, especially when locals or other tourists pushed back with critiques of Israel and support of Palestine. One anonymous local recounted a shouting match between a British or American man “backed by a group of Israelis” against a DJ at a resort party whose laptop sported “Libre Palestina” stickers. The skirmish escalated, with the men assaulting “the workers of the establishment.” Alexis Gumera, a Manila-based Filipina who regularly visits friends in Siargao, describes a face-off with an Israeli tourist who boasted to her friends “We kill all of Palestine,” which ended with the tourists throwing rocks at her group. A young girl passing by was struck. The perpetrators fled the island by the time the police began their investigation.