October 7 · Personal story
Buddee Saengboon
Abducted
October 7, 2023
Abduction location
Ami’Oz area, Israel
Current outcome
Released alive · November 24, 2023
Released from captivity on 24 November 2023.
01
Life before
Buddee told BBC Thai that he had worked in Israeli vegetable fields for 11 years. He planned to return home in two years because he felt his aging body could no longer manage the heavy work. His most recent workplace was Moshav Ami’Oz, less than 10 kilometres from the Gaza border.
02
Abduction
On 7 October 2023, Buddee and five colleagues were returning in a small truck after early work tying tomato plants at another moshav. Armed men stopped them and took them across the border into Gaza. Buddee told BBC Thai, “Everything happened very quickly.”
03
Captivity
Buddee told BBC Thai that after they were taken across the border, he believed he would not survive. He and his friends saw no way to contact the outside world; he feared an Israeli strike on the place where they were held would kill them. In Thailand, his mother Ratree tried every way she could to find him and called his nickname at mealtimes during the 48 days she did not know his fate.
04
Release and reunion
Hamas released Buddee on 24 November 2023, BBC Thai and Nation Thailand reported. The Associated Press reported that his mother, Ratree Sampan, travelled from Nakhon Phanom and met him at Bangkok airport.
05
Life after return
In a BBC Thai report published after his return, Buddee said he wanted to spend time with his family. The report described him working on the family’s rubber plantation, cutting rubber trees with a knife and riding there on a motorcycle with a sidecar. He said he did not plan to return to Israel.