Nattapong Pinta, 36: Thai farmer wanted to help wife open coffee shop

Kidnapped from Kibbutz Nir Oz and slain in captivity, his body recovered in June 2025

Nattapong “Nick” Pinta, 36, an agricultural worker from the northern Phrae Province of Thailand, was kidnapped on October 7 from Kibbutz Nir Oz.

He was slain in captivity and the IDF announced on June 7, 2025, that his body was retrieved from Gaza.

Nattapong was working and living on the outskirts of Nir Oz when the Hamas-led attack began. He called his wife, Narissara, to tell her there was shooting, and that he was running away, according to the BBC.

In total, 11 of his colleagues were slain in the attack on Nir Oz, while he and four others were kidnapped to Gaza. Authorities knew that Nattapong had been kidnapped alive, but they had seen no sign of life from him since he was taken to Gaza. In November 2023, two Thai workers kidnapped from Nir Oz were freed, and the two others were released in January 2025.

In total, Hamas freed four of the five Thai hostages who had not been declared dead by Israel in the early 2025 ceasefire. When Nattapong was not released, his family was alarmed and authorities expressed serious concern for his well-being.

In June 2025, the IDF announced that his remains had been retrieved from Rafah in southern Israel after it obtained intelligence during a Shin Bet interrogation, which led troops to the location of his body.

The IDF said it believed that the Mujahideen Brigades terror group murdered Nattapong in captivity during the first months of the war. His date of death has been tentatively declared as December 2023.

Nattapong was flown home for burial on June 10, 2025. He is survived by his wife, Narissara, and their son, Weerapat, as well as his father, Lop, and older sister Thanchanok.

Nattapong began working in agriculture in Israel in 2022, seeking to make significantly more money than he could in Thailand to support his family.

“He wanted to improve our family situation. Our son was very young. We didn’t earn enough here,” his wife, Narissara, told The Guardian.

He wanted to pay off his debts and help his wife open a coffee shop in Thailand, his family told the Wall Street Journal.

Speaking to a local news outlet in October 2023, when his fate was still unknown, Narissara said, “I want my husband to know that I love him very much. My son tells me every day that he misses him and wants him to come back and for us to be a warm family. If he comes back, I won’t let him go back to work in Israel.”

A statement from Kibbutz Nir Oz’s field crops team said Nattapong “was a hardworking and beloved person on the kibbutz, always with a smile and a willingness to help in whatever was needed.”

Nattapong “left a mark on everyone who knew him and, of course, on all the employees of the [crops team], who will always remember and memorialize him.”