BANGKOK: The body of the last Thai national held hostage in Gaza since the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel was returned home on Wednesday, Thailand’s foreign ministry said.
The remains of Sudthisak Rinthalak arrived at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport from Tel Aviv, ministry official Jeerasak Pomsuwan said, more than two years after the attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas.
Sudthisak was 43 and working in agriculture in southern Israel when he was killed on the day of the Hamas attack. His body was then taken to the Gaza Strip and held there throughout the ensuing war.
While Hamas released the living hostages it held in Gaza as part of a ceasefire deal with Israel, the process of returning the remains of deceased captives has dragged on.
Israel’s army said last week it had identified Sudthisak’s body which was returned by militants, and handed it over to Thai authorities for burial.
Sudthisak’s father Thongma told local outlet Manager Online that the family had been waiting for his remains so they could perform Buddhist funeral rites in his hometown in the northeastern province of Nong Khai.
Israel’s ambassador to Thailand Alona Fisher-Kamm expressed condolences to Sudthisak’s family during a mourning ceremony in Tel Aviv: “May he rest in peace.”
Thai Labour Minister Treenuch Thienthong said in a Facebook post that she would “guarantee the full benefits his family is entitled to.”
Nearly 30,000 Thais work in Israel, according to Thailand’s labor ministry, most of them in the agricultural sector where wages far exceed those at home.
The Gaza war was sparked by Hamas’s 2023 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,221 people.
The Thai labor ministry said 47 Thai nationals were killed during the conflict.
More than 70,000 people have been killed in Gaza since the outbreak of the war, according to figures from the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory that the United Nations considers reliable.