Beatings, chess and dreams of food: Thai man recalls 50 days in Hamas captivity

When Thai farm labourer Anucha Angkaew scrambled out of the bunker where he had been sheltering from rockets on Israel’s border with the Gaza Strip around 7:30 am on Oct. 7, he expected to see Israeli soldiers.

Instead, Anucha and his five Thai colleagues were accosted by 10 armed militants, whom he identified as Hamas by the Palestinian flags on their sleeves. 

“We shouted, ‘Thailand, Thailand!’ But they didn’t care,” said Anucha, a soft-spoken 28-year-old with a wispy goatee, one of the only hostages to speak at length about the ordeal.

Two of the six Thais were killed soon after, including a friend who Anucha said was shot dead in front of him in a random act of violence. The rest were forced onto a truck for a roughly 30-minute ride into Gaza.

“I thought I would die,” he said on Wednesday, at his family home in rural northeastern Thailand, where he returned this month after 50 days in captivity.

Around 130 still held hostage

He said almost all that time was spent inside two small underground rooms, secured by armed guards and accessed by dark narrow tunnels.

Hamas officials did not immediately respond to a written request for comment on Anucha’s account.

At least 240 people were abducted to Gaza on Oct. 7 by Hamas militants, who burst across the border and killed some 1,200 people. More than 100 of the hostages have been released since then.

In retaliation for Oct. 7, Israel mounted a devastating offensive that has killed more than 15,000 people, according to figures from Palestinian health officials deemed reliable by the United Nations.

Some 130 people, including eight Thais, remain captive.

Once in Gaza, the uniformed militants handed the Thais to a small group of men who took them to an abandoned house and tied their hands behind their backs.

Repeated beatings

The Thais were joined by a terrified 18-year-old Israeli, a man Anucha said he knew from Kibbutz Re’im, where he worked on an avocado farm.

Beatings began shortly after, as their captors punched and kicked them. “We shouted, ‘Thailand, Thailand!” he said, which eased the intensity of the blows. But the young Israeli wasn’t spared.

An hour later, all five were put into another truck that drove for about 30 minutes to a small building that led into a tunnel.