Freed Thai hostages plan return to Israel

“We decided together that we would do this in order to have the means to send our children to good schools and save money for when they grow up. I watched the news from Israel and saw missiles fell in the north, but it didn’t change our decision,” Munkan said.

Six months after being taken hostage, the ordeal is still fresh in her mind.

“It was like dying,” she said. “It was a miracle that I left Gaza. The current situation is cruel, and simply terrible.

“For both of us, captivity was like the end of our lives, and we have been free for a long time. I find it hard to understand how the remaining hostages will survive. I can’t stop thinking about them,” she said.

Nearly 30,000 Thais worked in Israel before the war, making up the largest group of foreign agricultural laborers in the country.

Thailand lost the third-most citizens to Hamas’s murderous assault on October 7, after Israel and the US.

Twenty-nine Thai workers were killed in the attack, while an additional 23 were taken to Gaza, the single largest group of non-Israelis among the abductees, who came from more than three dozen countries.