Somkuan Pansa-ard

Somkuan Pansa-ard, 39, a Thai national working in Israel, was murdered on October 7 by Hamas at a banana farm in Kibbutz Nahal Oz.

He is survived by his parents, Noopa and Khraboan. His body was returned home to his village in the Kalasin province in northeastern Thailand for burial.

According to the Bangkok Post, Somkuan served in the Thai army and then worked as a taxi driver before he came to Israel to earn money to support his family, as their sole breadwinner. His family said he had only been in Israel for three months when he was killed.

His mother, Noopa, told reporters that he had been on a five year contract to work in Israel, sending home around $2,000 every month to his family, though she had urged him to stay home in Thailand: “I told him I didn’t want the money, I just wanted him to be safe,” she said of their last phone call, according to Voice of America. “I was just telling him how much I missed him.”

His father, Khraboan, told Reuters that “losing my son… is the biggest loss in my life.”

“I didn’t want my son to go because this country is at war. I feared he would lose his life,” said Khraboan. “But he wouldn’t listen… He had to take care of the family to make them happy. He said that it paid well.”

“I have never been this devastated before, I am deeply saddened,” he added. “He told us there were explosions near the banana plantation where he worked, and then it went silent.”

His mother, Noopa, said that in their last conversation, he told her to be strong if anything happened to him.

“I told him — don’t talk like that… my heart will shatter if you don’t return.”
Source: The Times of Israel