After a joint US-Israeli strike on Iran in late February triggered a war in the Middle East, social media posts falsely claimed that more than 420,000 Israelis had fled the conflict to Thailand. But a Thai immigration officer told AFP the figure represented total visitor entries from Israel in 2025. As of the end of March, officials estimate that 30,000 Israeli nationals were in Thailand.

"Breaking! 425,000 Israelis fled from their country to Thailand to escape Netanyahu's mobilisation," reads a Thai-language X post published on March 26, 2026.

Other posts sharing the same claim emerged elsewhere on Facebook, X, Instagram and Threads as war raged in the Middle East (archived link).

Tehran's retaliation to the February 28 attack included firing volleys of missiles and drone attacks at Israeli and US military assets across the Gulf, plunging the world into its worst energy crisis in decades.

On March 26, Israel's military reported air defences were responding to multiple missiles launched from Iran targeting central Israel, Jerusalem, and the occupied West Bank (archived link).

However, there has not been an exodus of Israelis to Thailand, a representative from Thailand's Immigration Bureau told AFP on March 27.

"There have been no mass arrivals of up to hundreds of thousands as claimed," said the immigration official, who declined to be named as he was not authorised to speak to the media.

He said about 30,000 Israelis, including tourists, expats and students, were currently in Thailand.

The immigration bureau officer also pointed out that the 425,000 figure is closer to the number of Israeli visitors to the kingdom for the year 2025.

The department had earlier clarified in a March 12 Facebook post that 420,202 Israelis arrived in Thailand last year, while 405,712 left the country (archived link).

Meanwhile, officials recorded 84,238 arrivals and 80,171 departures from January 1 to March 11, stating that there was no unusual accumulation of visitors from Israel.

"The total number of Israeli nationals currently staying in Thailand is around 30,000, not hundreds of thousands," the bureau wrote in the comments of the Facebook post.

The Israeli embassy did not respond to AFP's request for comment at the time of publication.

In a March 10 interview with Thai journalists, Israel's ambassador to Thailand Alona Fisher-Kamm said around 425,000 Israelis visited the kingdom in 2025 (archived here, here and here).

AFP debunked similar claims in 2025, which circulated old images alongside an exaggerated figure of "Israeli settlers" in northern Thailand.

AFP has also debunked other misinformation linked to the Middle East war.