Thai hostages return from Gaza

At the 10th door of the arrivals of Bangkok airport, Wichayada Saeyang stroked his son’s hair, as if he were a small child, not an adult man. A few meters away, Pongsak Thanna wrapped his arms around his father and did not release him. His tears wet his father’s shoulder.

“Seeing my son, is indescribable,” said Vilas Thanna, Mr. Pongsak’s father. “I can’t say it with words.”

On Sunday morning, five hostages returned to Thailand after 15 months of captivity in Gaza. Family gatherings at the airport were a happy culmination of a terrible experience that has traveled a large community of Thai workers since Hamas -led attacks against Israel on October 7, 2023.

Despite having anything to do with the conflict, the Thai were, after the Israelis, the greatest victims of the terror that Hamas unleashed. At least 39 Thai agricultural workers were killed on October 7. More than 30 were taken as hostages, and most published in November 2023. Two died during captivity; A last Thai hostage does not have an account.

“Today is a very emotional day,” said Maris Sangiampongsa, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Thailand, who received the five hostages at Bangkok airport, describing how wonderful it was “that a person could return home with the warmth of his family “

Poverty has forced tens of thousands of people from Thailand, particularly from the rural northeast, to find work in Israel as farms. Its number rose in the 1990s after the first intifada, or uprising, when the farm owners sought replacements for Palestinian workers, and now are around 30,000. Some 5,000 of them worked in the fields near the border with Gaza, helping to cultivate much of the fresh products that are eaten in Israel.

Salaries in Israel, to choose avocados, raise chickens, take care of strawberries, are at least five times than those at home in Isaan, as northeast is known. So transformative is the money that thousands of Thai remained in Israel even after the murders of October 7. Others have continued traveling there for new contracts.

The danger continues to stalk. In October, the hezbollah rockets killed four Thai in northern Israel. The same month, another Thai died near the border of Israel-Libano when the artillery exploded in a garden.

For months, Mr. Vilas made pilgrimages to Buddhist temples, pleading with the security of his son, Mr. Pongsak. It was practiced in the ritual of prayer: the incense, the calendulas, the hands gathered in plea.

Just before Sunday, he boarded a truck during the long trip to Bangkok to meet with his son, arriving at the airport before dawn. His family could not pay a plane ticket, he said.

His son, he said, would soon be ordered as a monk to show his gratitude for survival.

“He felt as if he died and reborn,” said Pongsak about his captivity and liberation.

At Bangkok airport, Nukan Suwannakham, the mother of another hostage, Sathian Suwannakham, marveled at that, even after 15 months of captivity, his son seemed healthy.

“It even looks fat,” said Nukan. “He has more fat cheeks.”

His son told him that everything he did in captivity was “eating and sleeping.”

The hostages survived mainly in pita, beans and vegetables, they said, along with a little meat. The flavors were much softer than Isaan’s burning cuisine, with its fermented chiles and flowers. Months inside they left the hostages that lacked vitamin D, Thai diplomats said.

Anong Saethao, the 22 -year -old wife of Bannawat Saethao, another hostage, had her husband’s hand at the airport. She stroked her back. She snuggled in her shoulder. They have three children, 16 months, 4 and 6.

The children only knew that their father was working abroad, he said. They were too young to know the truth about their 15 months hostage, more time than the moment he had worked as a farm in Israel.

Even if other Thai workers have returned to Israel or are willing to do so, Mrs. Anong said her family was different. No money is worth such risks.

“I will never work abroad again,” he said.