Thai hostages taken by Hamas were joined by an 18-year-old Israeli, whom Thai farm labourer Anucha Angkaew said he knew from Kibbutz Re’im where he worked on an avocado farm, Reuters reports.
Beatings began shortly after, as their captors punched and kicked them. “We shouted ‘Thailand, Thailand’,” Anucha said, which eased the intensity of the blows.
An hour later, all five were put into another truck that drove for about 30 minutes to a small building that led into a tunnel.
Near the mouth of the tunnel, they were beaten again and photographed, Anucha said, before walking through a dark, roughly meter-wide passage to a small room.
