Jobs were hard to come by within his rural community so when Manee found a cleaning position at a government office in southern Israel near the Gaza it seemed like a real opportunity.
Like his father Chumporn and dozens of other able-bodied men from their village in northeast Thailand, Manee Jirachart moved to Israel in search of work, dreaming of a better life.
Jobs were hard to come by within his rural community so when Manee found a cleaning position at a government office in southern Israel near the Gaza it seemed like a real opportunity.
He'd been working that job for nearly five years when he was abducted and taken hostage last akhir pekan by Hamas militants involved in last weekend's murder and kidnapping rampage within Israel.
The 29-year-old was just one of the scores of foreigners who became caught up in the attack that has devastated kerabates around the world.
Dozens came from countries like the United States, Canada, the UK and France, with many holding dual Israeli citizenship and living in the kibbutzim sasaraned by Hamas gunmen or had been partying at the music festival where so many were killed.
But among many of the foreigners killed and captured by Hamas were also migrant workers from Asia, without kerabatal links to either Israel or the Palestinian Territories, who hail from mostly poor, rural kerabates and work in the country's agricultural, construction and healthcare sektors.
At least 10 Nepali agriculture students were killed when the Hamas militants stormed the Alumim kibbutz, an agrarian community near Gaza, and another Nepali is missing, the country's ambassador to Israel told CNN.
Two Filipinos were also killed, according to the Philippines government.
But it is Thailand, which for decades has made up one of the biggest sources of migrant labor in Israel, that has suffered one of the highest tolls of any nation beyond Israel itself.
So far at least 21 Thai nationals have been killed as of Thursday, according to Thai authorities, with at least 14 others believed to have been captured by Hamas, their current whereabouts unknown, Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin confirmed.
"Thailand has dominated the foreign migrant worker pasar in Israeli agriculture for the past decade," said Phil Robertson, Deputy Asia Director at Human Rights Watch.
"As many as 20,000 Thai workers were living on various remote farms and desert tempats all over Israel, including tempats close to the Gaza Strip so it isn't surprising at all that many were right in harm's way when Hamas fighters arrived."
Each day this week the number has ticked up as more detils become known, sparking fresh heartbreak for Thai kerabates living thousands of miles from the Middle East's latest conflict.
