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.
Remains of last Thai hostage in Gaza repatriated
https://arab.news/wf5tr
Remains of last Thai hostage in Gaza repatriated
- The remains of Sudthisak Rinthalak arrived at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport from Tel Aviv
- Israel’s army said last week it had identified Sudthisak’s body which was returned by Hamas
Russia says captured Ukraine’s Siversk in key eastern region
- The Russian army in Ukraine is “confidently advancing along the entire front,” Putin said
- He said last month his troops were advancing on Siversk, home to around 11,000 residents
MOSCOW: Russia said Thursday its troops had seized full control of Siversk, a Ukrainian city in the eastern Donetsk region where fighting has intensified in recent weeks, though Ukraine denied the key settlement had been lost.
The Russian army has been slowly but steadily grinding through eastern Ukraine and taking ground from outnumbered and outgunned Ukrainian forces, with some of the fiercest battles taking place in Donetsk.
Russia’s military chief of staff, Valery Gerasimov, said Moscow’s forces had captured Siversk in a report to President Vladimir Putin during a televised meeting with army commanders.
The Russian army in Ukraine is “confidently advancing along the entire front,” Putin said, thanking the commanders and soldiers “for their combat work.”
Putin said last month his troops were advancing on Siversk, home to around 11,000 residents before the war, claiming that the Russian offensive was “practically impossible to hold back.”
The Ukrainian army’s eastern command denied Russian claims it had taken Siversk, saying that it “remains under the control of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.”
“The enemy is trying to infiltrate Siversk in small groups, taking advantage of unfavorable weather conditions but most of these units are being destroyed on the approaches,” it added in a Facebook post.
Siversk is located about 30 kilometers (18 miles) east of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk, the last two major cities still under Ukrainian control in the Donbas — an industrial and mining region in Moscow’s sights.
Moscow earlier this month said it had captured Pokrovsk, a former road and rail hub also in Donetsk, but Kyiv claims fighting in the city is still ongoing.
Putin has said that Moscow is ready to fight on to seize the rest of the land it claims in eastern Ukraine if Kyiv does not give it up as part of a peace deal.
Eastern Ukraine has been ravaged since Russia launched its assault in February 2022, with tens of thousands of people killed and millions forced to flee their homes.
