{"id":577016,"date":"2026-08-06T23:46:15","date_gmt":"2026-08-06T23:46:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/577016\/"},"modified":"2026-08-06T23:46:15","modified_gmt":"2026-08-06T23:46:15","slug":"israeli-mother-and-daughter-brutally-attacked-in-thailand-he-asked-where-we-were-fr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/577016\/","title":{"rendered":"Israeli mother and daughter brutally attacked in Thailand: \u2018He asked where we were fr"},"content":{"rendered":"

An Israeli mother and daughter were seriously wounded in what they described as a brutal antisemitic attack on the Thai island of Koh Phangan after a man asked where they were from and then assaulted them.<\/p>\n

The suspect, who holds a French passport, was later arrested after allegedly becoming involved in a separate violent incident.<\/p>\n

\"\u05d4\u05d5\u05ea\u05e7\u05e4\u05d5<\/a>\"\u05d4\u05d5\u05ea\u05e7\u05e4\u05d5<\/p>\n

The Israeli women in the hospital. \u2018My daughter tried to protect me and was beaten too\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cOut of nowhere, he started beating me viciously and bit my ear,\u201d the mother told Ynet from her hospital bed. \u201cWe have injuries all over our bodies, everything is swollen. We went through what felt like a terror attack. It was horrifying.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 62-year-old mother had flown to Thailand for a two-week visit with her 23-year-old daughter, who was traveling in the country.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, the two rode a motorcycle to visit a waterfall on Koh Phangan. They parked near the road and began walking the roughly 100 meters toward the site when they encountered the man.<\/p>\n

\u201cA guy who was also on a motorcycle stopped behind us and started asking how we were,\u201d the mother said. \u201cWe were busy buying a coconut. He asked my daughter where we were from, and she said Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n

The man then began confronting them over the war in Gaza, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe said, \u2018I don\u2019t like what Israel is doing there,\u2019 and I told him we were on vacation and did not want to discuss the issue or what they had done to us,\u201d she recalled. \u201cHe said, \u2018I\u2019m against violence,\u2019 and the conversation ended.\u201d<\/p>\n

Moments later, she said, the man called out to them from above, came down toward them and attacked.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe started beating me viciously,\u201d she said. \u201cMy daughter tried to protect me and was beaten too. We both fought him. I was hit in the head, and at some point I apparently lost consciousness.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\u05d4\u05d5\u05ea\u05e7\u05e4\u05d5<\/a>\"\u05d4\u05d5\u05ea\u05e7\u05e4\u05d5<\/p>\n

The attacker continued hitting the mother while the daughter ran toward the road to seek help.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe chased her, but she managed to call out to two French women who were there,\u201d the mother said. \u201cWhen he saw that there were other people on the road, he took his motorcycle and fled.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember lying on the road while people told me that police and an ambulance were coming,\u201d she added. \u201cThey bandaged my head and took my daughter and me to a hospital on Koh Phangan.\u201d<\/p>\n

Medical teams at the hospital determined that both women required surgery.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey did a CT scan of my head and saw that I had bleeding, so they decided to transfer us by boat to a hospital on Koh Samui,\u201d the mother said.<\/p>\n

Their conditions were initially listed as serious but later stabilized.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was in intensive care for 24 hours,\u201d she said. \u201cToday was the first time we managed to open our eyes, drink and eat, and we are feeling better.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her daughter underwent surgery on her nose. The mother underwent surgery on her ear and said she would likely require another operation.<\/p>\n

\"\u05d4\u05d5\u05ea\u05e7\u05e4\u05d5<\/a>\"\u05d4\u05d5\u05ea\u05e7\u05e4\u05d5<\/p>\n

The mother said she had not expected such an attack in Thailand, a country she believed was generally welcoming toward Israelis.<\/p>\n

\u201cI never thought something like this could happen to me here in Thailand, where people are so friendly toward Israelis,\u201d she said. \u201cI am always careful and usually do not say I am from Israel. But here in Thailand, I thought it was safe.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said the attacker spoke with a French accent.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe could never have imagined he would do something like this,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is truly terrible, and we never thought our trip would end this way. We only wanted to see a waterfall, and then a man came and attacked two women in the most brutal way possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe tried to fight back, but he was extremely violent.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to the mother, the suspect was arrested by chance after becoming involved in another incident in a different town.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe understood that after attacking us, he went to another city, caused a disturbance there and attacked police officers,\u201d she said. \u201cAt that point, they did not yet know he was connected to our case.\u201d<\/p>\n

Police later came to speak with the women. The daughter gave a statement, and they were able to recall the suspect\u2019s name.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was when they realized it was the same man who attacked us,\u201d the mother said. \u201cThe police did good work and caught that evil man. They did not brush it aside.\u201d<\/p>\n

The mother said she fears the trauma will remain with them for a long time.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis happened in a place where we never dreamed it could happen,\u201d she said. \u201cWe will learn not to say we are from Israel, because you can never know how someone will react.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An Israeli mother and daughter were seriously wounded in what they described as a brutal antisemitic attack on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":577017,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85,46,43],"class_list":["post-577016","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577016","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=577016"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577016\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/577017"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=577016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=577016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=577016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}