Israeli forces operating inside Gaza have retrieved the body of Thai agricultural worker Nattapong Pinta, bringing to a close one of the many grim and unresolved chapters from the October 7th atrocities. In a joint operation by the Shin Bet and the IDF, based on intelligence gleaned from captured militants, the body was recovered in Rafah. Pinta had been abducted alive from Kibbutz Nir Oz during the Hamas-led assault, only to be murdered in captivity by a lesser-known but no less brutal Palestinian terror group: Kataeb al-Mujahideen.
Among the cascade of horrors unleashed that day, one of the most harrowing sights remains etched in my memory
Among the cascade of horrors unleashed that day, one of the most harrowing sights remains etched in my memory. It was a real-time video, circulated by Palestinian terrorists themselves, showing two men in civilian clothes from Gaza, jostling to capture the perfect angle as they filmed the slow, grotesque beheading of a barely living Thai worker writhing on the ground. The instrument: an agricultural hoe. The eagerness of the one wielding the blade was matched only by the urgency of the other to document the savagery. This was not the work of rogue madmen. It was a proud act of political violence, broadcast to the world.
Thai nationals, drawn to Israel by the promise of agricultural work, paid an unspeakable price that day. A total of 46 were killed in the initial massacre and its aftermath. Thirty-one were kidnapped and dragged across the border into Gaza. Through intensive diplomatic and intelligence efforts, 23 were released by the end of 2023. A further five were freed in January 2025, with Turkish mediation playing a key role. But three were murdered in captivity: Sonthaya Oakkharasri and Sudthisak Rinthalak, whose bodies remain in the hands of their captors, and now Pinta, whose remains have finally been brought home.
The group responsible for Pinta’s murder, Kataeb al-Mujahideen, is part of a broader terrorist ecosystem steeped in jihadist ideology. Originally a splinter faction of Fatah’s Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, it transformed in the years following Hamas’s seizure of Gaza into a radical Salafi-jihadist formation. It operates today both as an autonomous entity and a subcontractor for Hamas, often carrying out operations on its behalf. Rooted in the powerful Abu Sharia and al-Husayna clans, it straddles the worlds of terrorism and organised crime, funding its operations through smuggling and extortion in Gaza’s southern corridor.
Kataeb al-Mujahideen does not merely operate in Hamas’s shadow: it is woven into the very fabric of Gaza’s terrorist ecosystem. It has contributed significantly to tunnel infrastructure and rocket capabilities. It was also the group that abducted Shiri Bibas and her two young sons, Ariel and Kfir, who died in captivity. The image of the Bibas children, their red hair a vivid symbol of innocence amid horror, became an emblem of October 7th.
This is the nature of the enemy, and it is broader than many wish to admit. It forces an unavoidable reckoning. The fixation on Hamas as the sole repository of Palestinian terror is not only misleading, it is dangerous. Jihadi brutality, the glorification of martyrdom through murder, and the weaponisation of civilian suffering are not fringe beliefs. They are deeply embedded in the political and militant culture of Palestinian factions across the board. From Fatah offshoots to Islamic Jihad to groups like Kataeb al-Mujahideen, the ideology that drives this violence is neither new nor confined to a single organisation.
Any discussion of a future Palestinian state must grapple with this reality. Who would govern it, and on what ideological foundation? A Palestinian polity that fails to confront and dismantle this culture of jihadism would not become a beacon of peace, but another node in the global network of Islamist terror. To imagine otherwise is folly. The international community must ask itself whether it wishes to midwife a state built upon these foundations, or whether it will insist on a genuine reckoning with the ideologies that fuel such atrocities.
As for the Thai workers – the men and women who came seeking honest labour in the fields of Israel, only to be met with such barbarity – the debt owed to them can never be repaid. Pinta was a young man from Phrae Province, working to support a family that will now receive only grief. His body has been brought home, but the wounds inflicted by his murder will endure far longer. His story should not be lost amid the statistics and the abstractions. It must serve as a stark reminder: the fight against this brand of terrorism is not one of borders alone, but of moral clarity against barbarism – a fight in which the entire civilised world must take an active part, not only Israel.
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