Israel says Palestinian groups returned body of Thai hostage held in Gaza

Israel says the remains of a hostage it received from Hamas and the allied armed group Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) in Gaza have been identified as belonging to Thai agricultural worker Suthisak Rintalak.

The return of the 43-year-old’s body via the Red Cross on Wednesday means only one more dead hostage’s body due to be handed over under the terms of the ceasefire deal now remains in Gaza.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said Israel’s government shared “in the deep sorrow of the Rintalak family, the Thai people, and all of [the] fallen hostages’ families”.

It also vowed to work tirelessly to bring home the body of the last hostage, Israeli police officer Master Sgt Ran Gvili, 24.

Suthisak Rintalak was from the town of Rattanawapi in north-eastern Thailand.

He moved to Israel in 2017 as part of a foreign worker programme and was employed on several farms in communities located near the Gaza border, according to the Hostages and Missing Families Forum in Israel.

Israeli and Thai authorities say he had been in the orchards of Kibbutz Be’eri when he was killed in the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023. His body was then taken to Gaza and held hostage by Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

His mother, On, told Israeli Army Radio that it was “hard for us to digest the news” after being informed that his body had been recovered by PIJ fighters in northern Gaza.

“Two years have passed,” she said. “We felt great sadness when we knew he was no longer among the living.”

Israeli President Isaac Herzog wrote on X: “For 789 painful days, Suthisak was held hostage in Gaza. His family back in Thailand have waited in agony for his return. Now, Suthisak can finally be laid to rest with dignity.”

“Hamas’s cruelty continues. Ran Gvili, a police officer who fought and fell heroically on October 7th, is still being held hostage in Gaza. When we say we won’t stop until every last hostage is home, we mean it.”

A spokesperson for Thailand’s foreign ministry thanked the Israeli government for the assistance that led to the return of all 31 Thai nationals who were among the 251 people taken hostage during the 7 October attack. Another 39 Thai nationals were among the 1,200 people killed that day.

Israel responded to the attack by launching a military campaign in Gaza, during which more than 70,100 people have been killed, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.

Under the first phase of the US-brokered ceasefire deal, which took effect on 10 October, Hamas agreed to return the 20 living Israeli hostages and the bodies of the 28 dead Israeli and foreign hostages still in Gaza within 72 hours.

All the living hostages were released on 13 October in exchange for 250 Palestinian prisoners and 1,718 detainees from Gaza.

So far, the remains of 23 dead Israeli hostages have been handed over, along with those of four foreign hostages – two of them Thai, one Nepalese and one Tanzanian.

In exchange, Israel has handed over the bodies of 345 Palestinians killed during the war.

The seven-week-old ceasefire has continued to look shaky, with Israel and Hamas accusing each other of repeated violations.

On Wednesday night, an Israeli air strike killed five Palestinians, including two children, at a camp for displaced families in the al-Mawasi area of southern Gaza, a hospital said.

Israel’s military said it targeted a “Hamas terrorist” in retaliation for an earlier attack by Hamas fighters in the Rafah area that wounded five Israeli soldiers.

Hamas said the Israeli strike constituted a “clear war crime”.

Speaking to journalists at the White House, US President Donald Trump said the next stage of his Gaza peace plan – which includes plans for the post-war governance, the withdrawal of Israeli troops, the disarmament of Hamas and reconstruction – was “going to happen pretty soon”.

“They had a problem today, I understand, with a bomb that went off,” Trump said. “Hurt some people pretty badly… But it’s going very well. We have peace in the Middle East. People don’t realise it.”