Thai nationals were the single largest group of foreign nationals held by Hamas in Gaza and the highest number killed in Israel – the fact that 17 were quickly freed is considered a diplomatic achievement.
Behind the scenes, Thailand officials have been quietly working away at trying to get their citizens freed, attending meetings in Qatar and Iran.
At the centre of the Thai negotiating team is Lerpong Sayed, a Thai Muslim who, in an exclusive broadcast interview, told Sky News Hamas was justified in taking hostages.
Dr Sayed in recent weeks has split his time between his home country and Iran, where he spoke to Hamas five times.
“We went there to negotiate as normal people, not politicians. Hamas saw this. They saw us as Thai Muslims,” he told me in an interview that provides a window into his high-level talks.
“They promised that if there was a ceasefire Thai people would be released in the first group.
“Now we can obviously see Thais are among the first citizens freed compared to 20 other nationalities.”
Dr Sayed is part of a small team of three people working on behalf of the Thai House Speaker, Wan Muhammad Noor Matha, and the Shia Muslim leader in Thailand, Syed Sulaiman Husaini.
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Thai hostages arrive at Shamir Medical Centre
Thailand’s population of 70 million people is predominantly Buddhist and has largely peacefully co-existed with its sizeable Muslim minority.
On Tuesday, the Thai foreign minister went to Israel to meet with the hostages who were freed last week – the first group of captives released by Hamas as part of a truce deal with Israel.
The hostages are due to return to Thailand on Thursday.
Most went to Israel to work as farm labourers. On 7 October, when Hamas launched its attack, many were working in farms on the border. Before the war, 30,000 Thai labourers worked in Israel, predominantly in the agricultural sector.
Dr Sayed says the Thai government’s talks with the Qataris partly helped secure the release of Thais, but he firmly believes it was Thailand’s historic relationship with Iran that proved critical.
“I’d like to thank Iran – both the government and the people who have been supportive in negotiating with Hamas.”
Other analysts have suggested an agreement mediated by Qatar and Egypt was the pivotal factor in securing the release of hostages.
Iran has said it facilitated the release, while Hamas said it was due to the efforts of Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan.
For his part, Dr Sayed is confident that the Thai hostages have been treated well.
He says he knows they’ve told their families “they were well taken care of, well looked after, given shelter, clothes, food and water and given mental support”.
Image: Thai hostages taken by Hamas
The negotiator insists there were no conditions from Hamas on what the hostages could or couldn’t say, and dismisses the idea that the group, seen waving at hostages in increasingly highly produced videos, are using the hostage releases as a spectacle.
Controversially, he also says Hamas was justified in taking hostages.
It was, he argues, “to help the Palestinians”, citing the thousands of Palestinians in Israeli prisons and decades of what he sees as Israeli occupation and mistreatment.
From what he has seen and heard from Hamas, he believes the rest of the Thais being held in Gaza will be released. According to the Thai government, there are 15 still being held in Gaza.
But he said Hamas had given him an ominous warning for the Thai people and the Thai authorities: “The border area is disputed land and it’s war time and Hamas will consider anyone who works there is working for the outlaws.”
They will be very alarming words for the many Thais who are now looking to return, and are financially dependent on the considerable extra money they make in Israel.
A large-scale Russian attack through the night into Sunday injured at least 11 in Kyiv and killed three people in towns surrounding the capital.
There were attacks elsewhere as well, including drone strikes in Mykolaiv, where a residential building was hit.
Image: An apartment building destroyed after a Russian attack in Mykolaiv. Pic: State Emergency Service of Ukraine
‘Massive’ attack
In Kyiv, the city’s administration warned “the night will be difficult”, as people were urged to remain in shelters.
The city’s mayor Vitaliy Klitschko described it as a “massive” attack.
He said: “Explosions in the city. Air defence forces are working. The capital is under attack by enemy UAVs. Do not neglect your safety! Stay in shelters!”
It came after at least 15 people were injured in attacks the night prior.
Russia claimed it also faced a Ukrainian drone attack on Sunday, and that it intercepted and destroyed around 100 of them near Moscow and across Russia’s central and southern regions.
Image: A municipality worker cleans up after a Russian drone strike on Kyiv. Pic: Reuters
Russia ‘dragging out the war’
Meanwhile, Russia and Ukraine continued a prisoner exchange, marking a rare moment of cooperation in the war.
Amid the most recent attacks, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy repeated his calls for sanctions on Russia.
Russia “fills each day with horror and murder” and is “simply dragging out the war”, he said.
Image: A resident looks at an apartment building that was damaged in a Russian drone strike. Pic: Reuters
“All of this demands a response – a strong response from the United States, from Europe, and from everyone in the world who wants this war to end,” Mr Zelenskyy added.
Every day “gives new grounds for sanctions against Russia”, he said, and each day without pressure proves the “war will continue”.
Ukraine, meanwhile, is ready for “any form of diplomacy that delivers real results”.
Nine of a doctor’s 10 children have been killed in an Israeli missile strike on their home in Gaza, which also left her surviving son badly injured and her husband in a critical condition.
Warning: This article contains details of child deaths
Alaa Al Najjar, a paediatrician at Al Tahrir Clinic in the Nasser Medical Complex, was at work during the attack on her home, south of the city of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, on Friday.
Graphic footage shared by the Hamas-run Palestinian Civil Defence shows the bodies of at least seven small children being pulled from the rubble.
Rescuers can be seen battling fires and searching through a collapsed building, shouting out when they locate a body, before bringing the children out one by one and wrapping their remains in body bags.
In the footage, Dr Al Najjar’s husband, Hamdi Al Najjar, who is also a doctor, is put on to a stretcher and then carried to an ambulance.
The oldest of their children was only 12 years old, according to Dr Muneer Alboursh, the director general of Gaza’s health ministry, which is run by Hamas.
Image: Nine children were killed in the strike. Pic: Palestinian Civil Defence
“This is the reality our medical staff in Gaza endure. Words fall short in describing the pain,” he wrote in a social media post.
“In Gaza, it is not only healthcare workers who are targeted – Israel’s aggression goes further, wiping out entire families.”
Image: Pic: Palestinian Civil Defence
British doctors describe ‘horrific’ and ‘unimaginable’ attack
Two British doctors working at Nasser Hospital described the attack as “horrific” and “unimaginable” for Dr Al Najjar.
Speaking in a video diary on Friday night, Dr Graeme Groom said his last patient of the day was Dr Al Najjar’s 11-year-old son, who was badly injured and “seemed much younger as we lifted him on to the operating table”.
Image: Hamdi Al Najjar, Dr Al Najjar’s husband who is also a doctor, was taken to hospital. Pic: Palestinian Civil Defence
The strike “may or may not have been aimed at his father”, Dr Groom said, adding that the man had been left “very badly injured”.
Dr Victoria Rose said the family “lived opposite a petrol station, so I don’t know whether the bomb set off some massive fire”.
Image: Pic: Palestinian Civil Defence
‘No political or military connections’
Dr Groom added: “It is unimaginable for that poor woman, both of them are doctors here.
“The father was a physician at Nasser Hospital. He had no political and no military connections. He doesn’t seem to be prominent on social media, and yet his poor wife is the only uninjured one, who has the prospect of losing her husband.”
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Nineteen of Gaza’s hospitals remain operational, all of them are overwhelmed with the number of patients and a lack of supplies
He said it was “a particularly sad day”, while Dr Rose added: “That is life in Gaza. That is the way it goes in Gaza.”
Sky News has approached the Israeli Defence Forces for comment.
Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza began when the militant group stormed across the border into Israel on 7 October 2023, killing some 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and abducting 251 others.
Israel’s military response has flattened large areas of Gaza and killed more than 53,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry, which does not differentiate between civilians and combatants in its count.
The head of the UN has said Israel has only authorised for Gaza what amounts to a “teaspoon” of aid after at least 60 people died in overnight airstrikes.
UN secretary general Antonio Guterres said on Friday the supplies approved so far “amounts to a teaspoon of aid when a flood of assistance is required,” adding “the needs are massive and the obstacles are staggering”.
He warned that more people will die unless there is “rapid, reliable, safe and sustained aid access”.
Image: A woman at the site of an Israeli strike in Jabalia, northern Gaza. Pic: Reuters
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Gaza: ‘Loads of children with huge burns’
Israel says around 300 aid trucks have been allowed through since it lifted an 11-week blockade on Monday, but according to Mr Guterres, only about a third have been transported to warehouses within Gaza due to insecurity.
The IDF said 107 vehicles carrying flour, food, medical equipment and drugs were allowed through on Thursday.
Many of Gaza’s two million residents are at high risk of famine, experts have warned.
Meanwhile, at least 60 people have been killed by Israeli airstrikes across Gaza overnight.
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Ten people died in the southern city of Khan Younis, and deaths were also reported in the central town of Deir al-Balah and the Jabaliya refugee camp in the north, according to the Nasser, Al-Aqsa and Al-Ahli hospitals where the bodies were brought.
Image: A body is carried out of rubble after an Israeli strike in Jabalia, northern Gaza. Pic: Reuters
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‘Almost everyone depends on aid’ in Gaza
The latest strikes came a day after two Israeli embassy workers were killed in Washington.
The suspect, named as 31-year-old Elias Rodriguez from Chicago, Illinois, told police he “did it for Gaza”.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Sir Keir Starmer, Emmanuel Macron and Mark Carney of fuelling antisemitism following the shootings.
Mr Netanyahu also accused Sir Keir, Mr Macron and Mr Carney of siding with “mass murderers, rapists, baby killers and kidnappers”.
Image: Palestinians search for casualties in Jabalia, northern Gaza. Pic: Reuters
But UK government minister Luke Pollard told Sky News on Friday morning he “doesn’t recognise” Mr Netanyahu’s accusation.
Earlier this week, Mr Netanyahu said he was recalling negotiators from the Qatari capital, Doha, after a week of ceasefire talks failed to bring results. A working team will remain.
The war in Gaza began when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel on 7 October 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapping 251 others.
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The militants are still holding 58 captives, around a third of whom are believed to be alive, after most of the rest were returned in ceasefire agreements or other deals.
Israel’s offensive, which has destroyed large swaths of Gaza, has killed more than 53,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry.