THAI FARMWORKER WAS KIDNAPPED BY HAMAS MILITANTS SOON AFTER ARRIVING FOR WORK IN ISRAEL. (PHOTO).

Thai farmworker Wichian Temthong was kidnapped by Hamas militants soon after arriving for work in Israel.

 For 51 days, Thai farmworker Wichian Temthong woke up in a dark Gaza tunnel, captive of the Hamas terrorists who had raided the kibbutz in southern Israel, Kfar Aza, where he had arrived just the day before to tend avocado trees.

Speaking no language other than Thai, he was unable to communicate with his captors. But, he recalled in an interview this week with the BBC, it was the warmth of his fellow captives, three young Israeli men held in the tunnel with him, that helped him survive the physical and mental stress of the ordeal.

"Every day my foreign friends and I tried to support each other. We would shake hands and do fist bumps. They would cheer me up by hugging me and clapping my shoulder. But we could only communicate by using our hands," recalled Temthong.

Then on Sunday, he learned who the three men were: Alon Shamriz, Yotam Haim, and Samer Talalka, all three mistakenly shot dead by an Israeli sniper as they walked shirtless and slowly down a road in Gaza City.

Temthong's interview is the only account of the weeks the three men spent in captivity. Their tragic deaths have begun to shift the political debate in Israel and raise pressure on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to halt the fighting and open talks with Hamas to bring the remaining 120 or more hostages home.

Wichian said he was treated relatively well by his captors, but that in their first weeks underground two of the Israeli men were sometimes beaten with electric cables.

"We were always hungry. We could only sip our water. A large bottle had to last four to five days, a smaller bottler for two days," he told the BBC.