Safe and sound: Kittipong Chaiyako, 34, who worked at an avocado farm in Kibbutz, Israel, getting blessed by his family members during a traditional blessing ceremony to welcome him home after repatriation from Israel at his house in Bua Lamphu province, Thailand. — Reuters
The first group of Thai workers evacuated from Israel after the past few days’ bloody events in southern Israel and Gaza arrived on Thursday in Bangkok, greeted by anxious relatives and senior officials.
Hamas stormed a border fence last Saturday and killed hundreds of Israelis in their homes, on the streets and at an outdoor music festival.
The Israelis responded with punishing airstrikes and preparations for a possible ground invasion.
The conflict has claimed at least 2,600 lives on both sides, including some South-East Asian workers living in Israel.
The 41 Thais who returned home on a commercial flight of the Israeli airline El Al included two men wounded in the violence who had to use wheelchairs to exit the aircraft.
Farm labourers from Thailand seek work in more developed countries where there is a shortage of semi-skilled labour – at wages considerably higher than they can earn at home.
Tens of thousands of workers in Israel from nations including Thailand and the Philippines send their earnings home to support their families.
That money also helps to fire up their native countries’ economies.
But the appearance of Thais and Filipinos on the lists of dead, wounded and missing in the past few days is a reminder that foreign workers toil in peril of their lives.
About 30,000 Thais are working in Israel, according to the Thai Foreign Ministry, and about 5,000 of them live in the southern area near the border with Gaza.
One of them, Katchakorn Pudtason, said his employer at the farm where he worked initially herded all his workers into a bunker when the attacks took place, but after they left it for lunch they could still hear shooting.
As they were being driven back to their workplace, Katchakorn heard more gunshots and felt something hit his knee, he said.
“I thought it was a rock but it went through. So I hit the truck and told the driver to drive away,” he said.
He added that he was one of four people in the vehicle who suffered injuries that day.
He was one of the two returnees who had to use a wheelchair.
The government has vowed to look after the evacuees’ physical and mental well-being.
Foreign Minister Parnpree Bahiddha-Nukara said 5,990 Thais have registered to be evacuated and officials are working around the clock to accommodate them.
“We will use military aircraft to evacuate people from the high-risk area to a third country, such as the United Arab Emirates,” said Defence Minister Suthin Klangsaeng.
The number of Thais affected by the tragedy stood out in lists of non-Israeli nationals affected by the violence: Thailand’s foreign ministry on Thursday said 21 Thais are believed dead and 14 wounded.
Sixteen were believed to have been taken hostage.
Survivor Chatree Chasri left his home in northeastern Thailand in 2019 to work in Israel as an agricultural labourer to pay off debts and provide for his wife and two children back home in Nakhon Phanom.
Working overseas is a common path for many Thais from the country’s economically disadvantaged rural areas, especially the northeast.
Working under a government-to-government agreement, the 38-year-old has been farming tomatoes and cauliflower for the past four years in the southern Israeli town of Mivtahim, less than 10km away from Israel’s border with Gaza.
Despite the occasional shelling and rocket attacks that sent him running for cover, his life at the farm had been okay until last Saturday, he said from Israel in a phone interview.
Now he says he wants to return home, and never go back to Israel.
Chatree was shot several times in his hip shortly after Hamas launched its rocket attacks and shock ground offensive into southern Israel.
Vibhavadi Vannachai, a Thai expatriate who has lived in Israel for nearly two decades and is coordinating with Israeli authorities to help the Thai workers, fears the number of victims may rise.
Vibhavadi, originally from Nong Bua Lamphu province in Thailand’s northeast, works as an interpreter in a legal office whose cases mostly involve resolving disputes between Thai workers and their employers.
She said abuse and violations of their rights are common, with many bound by years-long contracts but cheated of their wages.
Many are forced to work long hours and are beaten if they refuse.
Some have to live in “quarters that are not fit for human beings,” she said.
The killing of at least two Filipino foreign workers underscored the threats also faced by those workers in Israel.
About 30,000 Filipinos live and work in the country many as caregivers who look after the elderly, the ill and those with physical disabilities, according to the Philippines’ foreign ministry.
The huge income they send back home, which last year amounted to an all-time high of US$36.14bil, has helped keep the country’s fragile economy afloat.
One of the two Filipinos killed last Saturday was a caregiver who was shot with her employer inside their house by Hamas gunmen, according to the Philippines Embassy in Israel.
The other was killed under still-unclear circumstances.
At least three Filipinos remain missing, embassy officials have said.
Still, Foreign Undersecretary Eduardo de Vega said on Wednesday that no Filipino has asked to be repatriated from Israel.
Jeremiah Supan, a 34-year-old Filipino caregiver in Israel, said in a telephone interview on Wednesday that he made it clear to Philippines officials he did not want to return home.
As the family breadwinner, he sends his earnings home to enable his 10-year-old son to remain in school and sustain other loved ones.
“The rocket firings are continuing,” Supan said.
“But if I leave, all that financial assistance that I send to my family back home will be lost.” — AP
