Among the 10 Thai nationals released by Hamas yesterday was Vetoon Phoome.
The 33-year-old farmworker had been feared killed in the militant group’s 7 October attack on Israel by his family, until they learned yesterday he had been freed.
“I saw the news hostages would be released, and then someone sent a photo,” his sister Roongarun Wichagern told Reuters. “It was clearly my little brother.”
“He told me not to cry, to tell mother I’m coming back.”
“He said, ‘I’m not dead, I’m not dead’,” she added, calling his survival a “miracle”.
Vetoon told his family he was captured by militants and held in tunnels, but he was not injured or tortured, she recounted.
He was given food and water and did not appear to have lost weight, she said.
The 10 Thais were among 24 hostages freed in exchange for 39 Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails.
Thailand’s government said 20 of its nationals remain captive.
The freed Thai hostages are being treated at Shamir Medical Centre in Israel and will return home after 48 hours, Thailand’s foreign ministry said in a statement.
About 30,000 Thai nationals work in Israel, forming one of its largest groups of migrant workers, many in agriculture.
