Thai farm workers attacked on Oct. 7 return to Negev farms

Ten foreigners are among the more than 90 hostages, living and dead, still being held by Hamas in Gaza, including eight Thai workers as well as a Nepalese and Tanzanian student.

By Etgar Lefkovits, JNS

A Thai agriculture worker crouched on top of the refrigerator in the small room in the cowshed in the southern kibbutz of Alumim, eyeing the removable ceiling panels for an emergency getaway.

It was Oct. 7, 2023, and Hamas terrorists had stormed this agricultural community, less than 2.5 miles from the Gaza border, using guns, hand grenades and a rocket-propelled grenade launcher to attack a group of Thai foreign workers and Nepali agricultural students, killing 22 of them (12 Thai and 10 Nepalese citizens) and abducting others to Gaza.

Their mobile caravan dormitories, nearest to the entry point of the terrorists, were adjacent to the cowshed. All had been set ablaze.

From his hiding place in the cowshed’s medicine room, Korawit Kaeokoed, 37, who had been milking the cows overnight before the attack got underway, messaged his wife in Thailand that he wouldn’t make it out alive.

Back to Thailand

Kaeokoed would remain hidden for the next 20 hours, using his sweatshirt, doused with a liquid solution normally used to prevent cows from becoming dehydrated, to cover his mouth to avoid breathing in the smoke that was spreading everywhere.

It was only early the next morning that he was rescued by kibbutz members who fought off the terrorist onslaught on this Orthodox village on that fateful autumn day 15 months ago.

They managed to stop the invaders from reaching the kibbutz members’ living quarters and prevented a bigger massacre like those that took place in nearby communities.

Safe at last, Kaeokoed saw the scorched bodies of friends stretched on the ground outside the cowshed.

The following week, he was among 9,000 Thais who returned to their country, out of the nearly 30,000 who were employed in Israel’s agricultural sector before the war.

In all, 39 Thai citizens were killed in the Oct. 7 massacres, the third-largest group after Israelis and Americans.

Return

Almost all of the Thai workers who left Israel right after the assault have since returned, some like Kaeokoed to the communities that came under attack on Oct. 7. After less than three months at home, he was already back in Israel last January, even as the war against Hamas continued to rage.

“Israel good,” Kaeokoed told JNS on Wednesday at the newly rebuilt cowshed where he had his close encounter with death.

“No work, no money in Thailand,” he added noting that he was glad to be back at the kibbutz supporting his family, who live in the impoverished north of the Southeast Asian country.

He vividly remembers everything he went through, showing JNS where he hid and where he had urgently messaged his employer: “Gaza here, Gaza here,” when he first caught sight of the invader.

Unfinished story

Ten foreigners are among the more than 90 hostages, living and dead, still being held by Hamas in Gaza, including eight Thai workers as well as a Nepalese and Tanzanian student.

Bipin Joshi, the 23-year-old Nepalese student who was abducted from this kibbutz, managed to pick up a terrorist grenade and throw it outside his bomb shelter, before being seized.

Last year, the community held a joint memorial for the slain workers and students, as well as the Israelis who were killed fighting off the intrusion, at the site of their former caravans.

‘We are their friends’

For war-scarred kibbutz members, the return of the Thai workers during the war was a heartwarming surprise.

“We were really shocked,” said Gilad Hunwald, 45, who runs the avocado sector at the kibbutz. “One day, all of a sudden I saw they had returned,” he said.

“I come back,” Kaeokoed told him. “We are their [the Thais’] friends,” Hunwald told JNS.