JERUSALEM — Israeli security forces have recovered the body of a Thai citizen who was abducted and taken back to the Gaza Strip in the 2023 Hamas-led attack, the military said Saturday.
Nattapong Pinta was in his 30s and was a farmworker at Kibbutz Nir Oz in southern Israel when he was taken hostage. He was held and later killed by members of the Mujahideen Brigades, a small militant group in Gaza, according to the Israeli military statement.
Security forces brought the body back from the Rafah area in southern Gaza after the Shin Bet domestic intelligence agency obtained intelligence from a Palestinian militant during an interrogation, the statement added.
Palestinian militants took dozens of Thai farmworkers hostage in the Oct. 7, 2023, attack. During a short ceasefire in November of that year, 23 Thai captives were released, and five more were freed during another ceasefire this year.
That ceasefire broke down and Israel resumed its offensive in Gaza against Hamas in mid-March with regular air bombardments and ground operations.
On Saturday afternoon, the Gaza Health Ministry reported that the bodies of 95 people killed by Israeli attacks Thursday and Friday, the first day of the Muslim Eid al-Adha feast, had arrived at hospitals in addition to more than 300 wounded. The ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its casualty counts.
Israeli officials have said the military was targeting militants and their weapons infrastructure.
Over the past week, however, scores of hungry and desperate Palestinians have been killed and wounded on their way to collect boxes of food at an aid distribution site in Rafah operated by U.S. security contractors.
The site was set up as a part of a new Israeli-backed effort to deliver aid to Palestinians without Hamas benefiting. The effort has been boycotted by the United Nations and other prominent aid groups, which accuse Israel of using aid as a weapon.
Israeli officials have argued that the new system was needed because Hamas was looting aid from trucks entering parts of Gaza where it still wields power. U.N. officials say there is little evidence that Hamas has systematically diverted aid.
The Red Cross said its 60-bed field hospital in southern Gaza, a short distance from the distribution site in Rafah, had received a total of 40 bodies Sunday and Tuesday and 323 wounded people, most of whom had gunshot and shrapnel injuries and some of whom later died.
On Saturday, Avichay Adraee, the Arabic-language spokesperson for the Israeli military, wrote on social media that gathering near distribution sites outside their hours of operation “puts you in danger.”
Some Palestinians have tried to advance in the line by taking shortcuts to the aid sites beyond the officially marked path, but people both on and off that path appeared to have come under fire, according to three witnesses.
Broadcasts by Israeli drones told people arriving early to come back later, but many have ignored those calls, worried that they will lose their spot in line, the witnesses said.
On Saturday evening, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said it was “impossible to proceed” with the distribution of aid on Saturday, accusing Hamas of threatening its operations without offering specifics. A spokesperson for the foundation later accused Hamas of threatening the lives of its Palestinian workers, but he did not provide evidence.
Separately, four Israeli soldiers were killed Friday and five were wounded when an explosive device was detonated in southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, according to Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin, the Israeli military’s chief spokesperson. The soldiers had been operating in a Hamas compound when the explosion occurred, causing part of the structure to collapse, he added.
The latest hostage retrieval brings the number of remaining living and dead captives believed to still be held in Gaza to 55. The Israeli government has said that up to 23 are believed to be alive.
The recovery of Nattapong’s body came after the Israeli military announced Thursday that security forces had retrieved the remains of two Israeli Americans who it said were also killed by the Mujahideen Brigades. The two victims, Judi Weinstein Haggai and Gadi Haggai, were in their 70s when they were killed.
Israel believes the bodies of two other Thai citizens, Sonthaya Oakkharasri and Sudthisak Rinthalak, remain in Gaza, according to Yahel Kurlander, a sociologist who has been fighting for the release of Thai hostages.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar updated his Thai counterpart, Maris Sangiampongsa, about the details of the operation to bring the Thai farmworker’s body back to Israel, according to a statement from the Israeli Foreign Ministry. He was married and has a son, the ministry said.
He had been in Israel for more than a year when he was taken hostage, and he was a strong personality who acted as a bridge between other Thai farmworkers at Nir Oz and employers, according to Josh Lawson, an official in the Israeli prime minister’s office who deals with foreign hostages.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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