Thai Hostages Return From Gaza

At Gate 10 of the arrivals hall of the Bangkok airport, Wichayada Saeyang stroked her son’s hair, as if he were a small boy, not a grown man. A few feet away, Pongsak Thanna wrapped his arms around his father and did not let go. His tears dampened his father’s shoulder.

“To see my son, it’s indescribable,” said Vilas Thanna, Mr. Pongsak’s father. “I cannot say it in words.”

On Sunday morning, five hostages returned to Thailand after 15 months of captivity in Gaza. The family reunions at the airport were a happy culmination to an ordeal that has roiled a large community of Thai laborers since the Hamas-led attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

Despite having nothing to do with the conflict, Thais were, after Israelis, the biggest victims of the terror that Hamas unleashed. At least 39 Thai agricultural workers were killed on Oct. 7. More than 30 were taken hostage, with the majority released in November 2023. Two died during captivity; one final Thai hostage remains unaccounted for.

“Today is a very emotional day,” said Maris Sangiampongsa, Thailand’s foreign minister, who received the five hostages at the Bangkok airport, describing how wonderful it was “for a person to be able to come home to the warmth of their family.”

Poverty has compelled tens of thousands of people from Thailand, particularly from the rural northeast, to find work in Israel as farmhands. Their numbers climbed in the 1990s after the first intifada, or uprising, when farm owners were looking for replacements for Palestinian workers, and are now around 30,000. About 5,000 of them worked the fields near the border with Gaza, helping to grow much of the fresh produce eaten in Israel.