As part of the truce, five Thais and three Israelis were released today, including Agam Berger. The Netanyahu government complains over the process. After 40 years in prison, the "dean of Palestinian prisoners” was freed over the weekend. His first words were for his grandchildren, not to take the path of armed struggle.

Jerusalem (AsiaNews) – After a long wait and many prayers, people in Kut Yang, a remote village in Udon Thani, a province in northeastern Thailand, celebrated the release of Watchara Sriaoun, one of the hostages held in Gaza by Hamas and Islamic Jihad since 7 October 2023.

The Thai Christian was freed in Khan Younis today together with four other Thais – Pongsak Thaenna, Sathian Suwannakham, Bannawat Seathao and Surasak Lamnao – and the three Israelis – Gadi Moses, Arbel Yehud and woman soldier Agam Berger, who left the Palestinian territory after more than 15 months in captivity.

The release was marked by controversy, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu calling the images of the hostages’ release “shocking”, slamming Hamas for its “unimaginable cruelty”.

The hostages are among the most controversial and debated issues since Hamas' attack on the Jewish State on 7 October 2023, which saw more than 1,200 people killed on the Israeli side, triggering a brutal war in Gaza that left at least 48,000 people dead, mainly civilians, most of all women and children,

In Israel, the issue has fuelled a heated war of words between Israel’s radical right, bent to continue the war even at the cost of hostages’ release, and the latter’s families who have demanded for months that the government make every effort to get them back.

With a truce in place, and the exchange of Palestinian prisoners for hostages underway, came hope for all the hostages, including Asian migrants, from countries like Thailand and Nepal, who are the “forgotten face”, often on the margins of this tragedy.

The mother of the Christian migrant worker rejoiced as soon as she heard the news of her son’s release. “It is confirmed everyone, my son did not die. Thank you God,” said a sobbing Wiwwaeo Sriaoun, happy for the news. “I will hug him when I see him. I want to see if his health is OK, I am worried about his health,” she added, according to the Times of Israel.

Family members gathered to support Wiwwaeo as she waited for news at the family’s modest home on a rubber plantation in the northeastern province of Udon Thani.

Since the morning, people were waiting to hear any further confirmation from Thailand’s ambassador to Israel, Pannabha Chandraramya, who had announced the coming release of five Thais held by Hamas (or Islamic Jihad).

The diplomat also explained that out of eight Thai hostages, aged between 28 and 42, six were still alive while two were dead. All were abducted from four farms close to the Gaza border, where they were employed as agricultural workers.

Yesterday, Mousa Abu Marzouk, a senior Hamas official, had anticipated the release of the five Thais held by Islamic Jihad. Two Thais, Sudthisak Rinthalak and Sonthaya Oakkharasr were confirmed dead.

At the time of Hamas’s attack, tens of thousands of migrant workers from Southeast Asia were employed in Israel, mostly on farms or in construction sites.

Most farm workers were in the south near the border with Gaza or in the far north, not far from Lebanon, among the most exposed to war. In addition, according to the Thai government, its citizens were by far the largest and most affected group, with at least 32 deaths. Over a year ago, 23 Thai hostages were released during a brief truce in November 2023, followed by an escalation of the war.

Finally, with respect to Palestinian prisoners, the agreement between Israel and Hamas for the ceasefire saw the release on Saturday of 69-year-old Mohammed Altoos along with 200 other prisoners, 121 of whom were sentenced to life imprisonment and 79 to long sentences.

Better known as "the living martyr" and the "dean of Palestinian prisoners” for his time behind bars, he spent more than 40 years in Israeli jails and was released on the condition he goes into exile in Egypt.

In recent days, interviewed by an Arab television, he addressed the younger generations in the West Bank and Gaza.

“I urge my grandchildren not to take the resistance armed struggle path,” he said. “If I had known my freedom would come at the cost of 60,000 lives in Gaza, I would have chosen to remain in prison.”

In October 1985, Israel arrested Altoos, then 28, after capturing him in a bloody battle between the army and a Palestinian commando in the West Bank, near the border with Jordan. An Israeli fighter jet struck the vehicle carrying the commando, killing all but Altoos, who was left seriously injured.

Believing that their son had been killed, the family held a public vigil and accepted, as per tradition, people’s condolences. However, six months later they discovered that he had survived the Israeli airstrike and was in prison. Surprised by the news, the family began calling him “the living martyr”.

According to the Palestinian Prisoner's Society (PPS), an Israeli court sentenced Altoos to multiple life sentences for his involvement in military operations against Israeli forces and for his affiliation with the then-banned Fatah movement, which he had joined at the age of 14.

For decades, Israel refused to release him despite agreeing to several prisoner exchanges with Palestinian factions, including the one that saw the release of Israeli soldier Gilat Shalit in 2011 or another agreement in 2014.

Israeli authorities demolished Altoos’s family home in Al-Ja’ba, a village near Bethlehem, on three separate occasions while he was in prison. In 2015 he lost his wife Amna after a long illness and, with the outbreak of war in Gaza, his children were no longer allowed to visit him.

At present, following the release of the “dean of prisoners”, 21 Palestinians remain in Israeli prisons from before the Oslo peace accords of 1993.

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