Iran tried to exploit hostages to pressure Thailand into undermining Israel’s agriculture sector – report

The Iranian regime attempted to leverage the hostage crisis by pressuring Thailand into harming Israel’s agricultural sector in 2023, The Jerusalem Post reported on Thursday.

Between 30,000 and 40,000 of Thai citizens were working in Israel’s agricultural sector at the time, many of them in the Gaza Envelope area.

On Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas murdered 39 Thai citizens and abducted another 31. The body of the last Thai hostage, Sudthisak Rinthalak, was returned to Israel on Wednesday.

According to the report, Iran contacted the Thai government in the first weeks after the invasion and offered its help to secure the release of its citizens in return for pressuring Israel’s economy.

The regime demanded that Bangkok categorize Israel as an “unsafe country,” effectively forcing it to instruct the tens of thousands of workers to leave Israel immediately, two informed sources told the Post.

The negotiations reportedly began in November 2023, when Thailand sent a high-level delegation to Tehran.

The team met with Iranian officials and possibly even with Hamas representatives, including Mousa Abu Marzouk, demonstrating the close relations between the terror group and the regime in Tehran.

Thailand’s ambassador said that Hamas would be ready to release the Thai workers, and several weeks later, 23 Thai laborers were freed in the first hostage-for-prisoners exchange.

However, Iran did not succeed in its demand for Bangkok to order a mass exodus of workers, and most chose to stay in Israel despite the war.

The other eight Thai nationals were freed in later exchanges, but three of the 31 hostages, including Rinthalak, were murdered in captivity.

In the end, Israel’s diplomats managed to turn the situation around and instead of a break in relations with Thailand, Bangkok and Jerusalem moved closer together.

In May 2024, Thailand’s minister of labor visited Israel and the two sides agreed to encourage even more Thai laborers to work in Israel.

Israel’s agricultural sector was faced with a catastrophe in the aftermath of Oct. 7, threatening the entirety of domestic food production at a time where many flights and ship connections were canceled, leading to sporadic shortages of goods.

The Agriculture Ministry said in November 2023 there was a shortage of some 40,000 farm laborers.

This was caused not just by the lack of foreign laborers coming from overseas, but also the departure of thousands of Israelis who were called up for military reserve duty and the lack of Palestinian agricultural workers after checkpoints from Gaza, Judea and Samaria were closed due to the war.

A 2021 Knesset study of 75,200 people working in the agriculture sector in 2020 showed that 49% were Israeli, 32% foreign – mostly Thai – and 19% were Palestinian.