As part of the truce, today five Thai and three Israeli were released, one of which is Agam Berger. Controversies in the Netanyahu government about modalities. Israel released during the weekend the “Dean of Palestinian prisoners”, who spent 40 years in prison. His first words were: “I tell my grandchildren: not to the armed struggle.”
Jerusalem () – After a long wait and family prayers, has finally arrived at the time to celebrate in the Kut Yang village, in the province of Udon Thani, a remote corner of the northeast of Thailand. One of the hostages that was released today in Khan Youis by Hamas and Islamic jihad is the Christian Watchara Sriaoun, who since October 7, 2023 was held hostage in Gaza. Together with his four compatriots Pongsak Thaenna, Sathian Suwannakham, Bannawat Seathao and Surak Lamnao, and the three Israeli citizens Gadi Moses, Arbel Yehud and soldier Agam Berger, could leave the strip, where he spent more than 15 months in captivity. A liberation that was characterized by the controversies, when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described as “shocking” the images of the kidnapped children and “of unthinkable cruelty” to the Palestinian movement.
From the attack of Hamas to the Jewish State on October 7, 2023, which left 1,200 victims on the Israeli side and triggered a bloody conflict in the strip with about 48,000 dead, mostly civilians, women and children, the theme of the Hostages has been one of the most controversial and debated. Subsequently, it has also become a political confrontation between the radical right, which presses to continue the war even at the expense of the release of the kidnapped, and the families that for months have asked the Executive to make all possible efforts to return. A hope fed by the truce, with the exchange of Palestinian prisoners and hostages, some of which are migrants from Asia, from Thailand to Nepal, the “forgotten face” often marginal of this tragedy.
When he received the news that his son had been released, Wiwwaro Sriaoun, the mother of the Christian migrant worker, exclaimed between sobs of happiness and relief: “He is confirmed, my son is not dead. “Thank God”. “I will hug him when I see him. “I want to see if it is fine, I am worried about her health,” added the woman, according to the Times of Israel. The family members gathered to accompany Wiwwaeo while waiting for the news in the humble house of their family’s rubber plantation, in the northeastern region of Udon Thani.
Throughout the morning they were waiting for a confirmation of the words of the Ambassador of Thailand in Israel, Pannabha Chandraramya, who had announced in recent hours the news that five compatriots would be released today in the hands of Hamas (or Islamic jihad). The head of Bangkok’s diplomacy before the Jewish state also clarified that there are six live hostages and two dead in Gaza, aged between 28 and 42 years. All had been kidnapped on four farms near the border, where they were employed as agricultural workers. Also yesterday, Mousa Abu Marchuk, a senior Hamas official, had anticipated the release of five Thai in the hands of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. The death of Sudthisak Rinthalak and Sonthaya Oakkharasr had already been confirmed.
Tens of thousands of economic immigrants from Southeast Asia were in Israel for work, most of them in farms or in construction companies, when Hamas attack occurred. Most operators are used in the south, near the border with Gaza, or in the north, not far from the border with Lebanon, and therefore is one of the most exposed categories to the conflict of recent months. On the other hand, the Bangkok government said that Thai citizens have been, by far, the most numerous and most affected group, with at least 32 dead. More than a year ago, during a previous agreement for a brief truce agreed in November 2023 to which a climbing of the war then followed, 23 Thai hostages had already been released.
On the Palestinian side, the high fire agreement between Israel and Hamas led to liberation, on January 25, by Mohammed Altoos, 69, along with another 200 prisoners, 121 of which they served perpetual chain and 79 long sentences. Better known as “the living martyr” or, due to the past in jail, the “Dean of the Palestinian prisoners”, was more than 40 years in Israeli prisons and was released on condition of exile in Egypt. A few days ago, in an interview with an Arab television, he went to the young generations of the West Bank and Gaza: “I urge my grandchildren not to undertake the path of armed struggle of the ‘resistance’. If I had known – he continued – that my freedom would have the price of 60 thousand lives in Gaza, I would have chosen to remain in jail. ”
In October 1985 Israel captured Altoos, then 28 years old, in a bloody battle between the army and a Palestinian command in the West Bank, near the border with Jordan. An Israeli combat plane attacked the vehicle that transported to the command, killed all his teammates and he was seriously injured. Believing that his son had died, the family made a public vigil and accepted, as is tradition, condolences. However, six months later it was discovered that he had survived Israeli air attack and was in prison; The family, surprised by the news, calls it “the living martyr.”
According to the Palestinian Prisono’s Society (PPS), an Israeli court sentenced multiple perpetual chains for their participation in military operations against Israeli forces and their affiliation to the Fatah movement, prohibited at that time, to which he had joined the 14 years at 14 years . For decades Israel has refused to release him in all prison exchange agreements with Palestinian factions, including the release of Gilat Shalit in 2011 and the 2014 agreement. The Israeli authorities demolished the family’s house in the Al-Ja village ‘Ba, near Bethlehem, on three different occasions while in jail. In 2015 he lost his wife Amna after a long illness, and when the war broke out in Gaza his children could no longer visit him. To date, after the release of the “Dean of the prisoners”, there are 21 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons before the Peace Agreements of Oslo of 1993.
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