Pratheep Nanongkham

Oct 6, 2004 - Pratheep Nanongkham, 24, a greenhouse worker from Maha Sarakham province in Thailand, was killed when armed terrorists infiltrated the hothouse area of Kfar Darom in the central Gaza Strip. Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack.

A group of three Palestinians infiltrated the Kfar Darom hothouses, crossing a fence unequipped with a warning system. They entered the hothouses, armed with Kalashnikov rifles, and two of the men carried bombs, and opened fire on the foreign workers and Israelis at the scene.

Pratheep Nanongkham, one of the workers from Thailand, was seriously wounded and died a short time later from his wounds. The terrorists were killed by soldiers. Additional bombs were later found in the hothouses.

Pratheep entered Israel on Sept 1, 2002 on a two-year contract which was later renewed by his employer. He returned to Israel on October 1 this year for a job supposedly in a non-risk area.

Five other Thai laborers from the scene. Pratheep was the second foreign worker from Thailand to be killed in the Gaza Strip. On June 21, another Thai hothouse worker, Weerachai Wongput, was killed under similar circumstances, when he was struck in the chest by shrapnel from a mortar shell fired at Kfar Darom during an infiltration attempt by Palestinian terrorists.