By Varvara Vasyanova –
To earn extra money to ease his family’s poverty, Watchara Sriaoun traveled in 2020 from Thailand to Israel to work on an avocado and potato farm in a kibbutz near Gaza. During his free time, he played ping pong with other Thai workers.
Then Oct. 7 struck, and armor-clad men, shooting, caught him early morning as he was headed to the bathroom. “Thailand, Thailand,” he pleaded. Watchara didn’t understand much about the tensions between Israel and the Arabs who call themselves Palestinians. But he thought the terrorists would realize he wasn’t involved in the conflict and leave him alone.
Watchara was wrong. The Hamas soldiers took him hostage, along with six or so other Thai workers. They killed about a dozen Thai workers, according to i24News English. People from other nations met similar fates as Hamas carried out its massacre and kidnapping spree.
Watchara was released two months ago with other Thais. “I felt reborn,” he says. After physical and mental evaluations, he was released to travel back to Thailand, where he celebrated his return in his Christian church with community members.
Why would Hamas indiscriminately kill and take hostage people from all sorts of nationalities, who have no part in the conflict? If Gaza has problems with Israelis, why do they take it out on people who have nothing to do?
The terrorist justifiers enumerate reasons that simply don’t add up to any sensible person.
It was never an easy decision in 2020 to leave his native Thailand on a worker’s visa in Israel. But his parents, who were old, needed his support, as did his daughter. So Watchara embarked on a journey to the Holy Land to work.
As it turned out, separation from his family was a small thing. What happened eclipsed all previous hardships.
Watchara couldn’t believe that he was targeted by the black-clad Hamas invaders. They fired shots, ignored his pleas of “Thailand, Thailand!” and took his phone.
To i24News, Watchara didn’t want to share many details of his captivity. He lived in a room. They were given cheese, cucumbers, tomatoes and sometimes rice, to eat. Water was as irregular as was the food.
On several occasions, he was told he was going to be released. But it didn’t happen, and the disappointment weighed heavily.
Eventually, he was released with five other Thais. As he was helicoptered out of the conflict zone, he looked down from the window and saw the farmlands he had worked as a laborer. He was giddy with happiness.
“I saw the trees, gardens and the fields we were working on,” he says. “It was open and I could see everything. Before I was confined to a room. so it felt strange; it felt like I was reborn”
Watchara was released to return to Thailand, where his community thanked God for his safe return.
