Remains of Sudthisak Rinthalak, last Thai hostage in Gaza, arrive home

Body of captive slain by terrorists on Oct. 7 and held for two years arrives at Bangkok airport, where family waits to perform Buddhist funeral rites in his hometown

By AFP and ToI Staff 10 December 2025, 6:46 pm

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Workers move a coffin containing the body of Sudthisak Rinthalak, a Thai laborer who was killed and whose body was taken hostage by Hamas during the October 7, 2023, attack, as it arrives at Suvarnabhumi International Airport in Samut Prakarn, Thailand, December 10, 2025. (Surakit Kaewmorakot/AP)

BANGKOK, Thailand — The body of the last Thai national held hostage in Gaza since the October 7, 2023, attack on Israel was returned home on Wednesday, Thailand’s foreign ministry said.

The remains of Sudthisak Rinthalak arrived at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport from Tel Aviv, ministry official Jeerasak Pomsuwan told AFP, more than two years after the attack led by Palestinian terror group Hamas.

Sudthisak was 43 and working in agriculture in southern Israel when he was killed on the day of the Hamas attack. His body was then taken to the Gaza Strip and held there throughout the ensuing war.

While Hamas released the living hostages held in Gaza on October 13 as part of a ceasefire deal with Israel, the process of returning the remains of deceased captives has dragged on.

Israeli authorities said last week they had identified Sudthisak’s body, which was returned by terrorists, and handed it over to Thai authorities for burial.

Sudthisak’s father Thongma told local outlet Manager Online that the family had been waiting for his remains so they could perform Buddhist funeral rites in his hometown in the northeastern province of Nong Khai.

Relatives and friends of Thai national Sudthisak Rinthalak mourn next to his coffin during a farewell ceremony at Ben Gurion Airport, December 9, 2025. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)

Israel’s ambassador to Thailand Alona Fisher-Kamm expressed condolences to Sudthisak’s family during a mourning ceremony near Ben Gurion Airport before the remains were flown out of the country: “May he rest in peace.”

Thai Labour Minister Treenuch Thienthong said in a Facebook post that she would “guarantee the full benefits his family is entitled to.”

Rinthalak was one of 39 Thai nationals killed during the devastating invasion of southern Israel on October 7. With his return of his remains last week, the body of just one slain hostage remains in Gaza: police officer Master Sgt. Ran Gvili, who was killed and abducted while battling terrorists in the border community of Alumim on the morning of October 7.

Sudthisak Rinthalak, a Thai agricultural worker who was murdered by Hamas-led terrorists on October 7, 2023, and whose body was taken hostage to Gaza and returned to Israel on December 3, 2025. (Courtesy)

The Hamas attack, which killed 1,221 people, and during which 251 people were abducted as hostages to Gaza, triggered the Gaza war. A shaky October ceasefire halted the war, amid sporadic, deadly clashes, along a seamline between Israeli and Hamas-held areas of Gaza.

Nearly 30,000 Thais work in Israel, according to Thailand’s labor ministry, most of them in the agricultural sector, where wages far exceed those at home.

The Thai labor ministry said 47 Thai nationals were killed during the conflict.