The body of slain hostage Nattapong Pinta, who Hamas-led terrorists abducted on October 7, 2023, was recovered in a joint Israel Defense Forces and Shin Bet operation in the southern Gaza Strip, officials announced Saturday morning.

Pinta, a Thai national, was kidnapped alive by terrorists of the Mujahideen Brigades — a relatively small terror group in the Strip and somewhat allied with  Hamas — from the Gaza border community of Kibbutz Nir Oz, where he worked as a farmhand.

The IDF said it believed that the terror group murdered Pinta in captivity during the first months of the war.

Intelligence obtained during a Shin Bet interrogation of a Palestinian terror operative who was detained in Gaza led the IDF to the location of Pinta’s body in Rafah, the military said.

The IDF said the exact circumstances of his death and date were currently unknown and were under investigation.

Pinta was among three hostages whom Israel had grave concerns for their lives, though had not until now officially declared Pinta dead.

The IDF said the operation in Rafah on Friday was carried out using “precise intelligence” obtained by the Shin Bet from its interrogation of the terror operative and other information collected by the military’s Hostages Headquarters unit and the Military Intelligence Directorate.

After his body was brought to Israel and identified at the National Institute of Forensic Medicine, also known as Abu Kabir, Israeli officials notified Pinta’s family, Thai officials, and Kibbutz Nir Oz.

The Mujahideen Brigades is a relatively small terror group in the Strip that was also responsible for the abduction and murder of Shiri Bibas and her two young sons, Ariel and Kfir, as well as Gadi Haggai and Judih Weinstein, whose bodies were recovered from Khan Younis early Thursday.

The terror group is still holding the body of another foreign national, according to the IDF.

Nir Oz was one of the worst-hit communities during Hamas’s October 7 terror onslaught.

In all, 47 people were killed in the kibbutz during the onslaught. Another 76 were abducted by the terrorists to Gaza. Currently, four hostages are presumed alive, and the bodies of seven captives from Nir Oz remain held in the Strip.

Known as ‘Nick’ on his Facebook page, Pinta was working in the avocado fields of Kibbutz Nir Oz, saving up to pay off a debt and help his wife open a coffee shop.

He left his wife and young son in Thailand, a year and a half before the onslaught, to work on the avocado and pomegranate farm.

On the morning of October 7, Pinta called his wife, Narissara Chanthasang, to tell her there was shooting, and that he was running away.

Pinta was among 31 Thai nationals working in agriculture abducted by terrorists on October 7. Another two foreign farmhands, from Nepal and Tanzania, were also kidnapped. Hamas has since released 29 of them amid hostage deals with Israel.

In all, terror groups in the Gaza Strip are holding 55 hostages, including 54 of the 251 abducted by Hamas-led terrorists on October 7, 2023.

They include the bodies of at least 33 confirmed dead by the IDF, and 20 are believed to be alive. There are grave concerns for the well-being of two others, Israeli officials have said.

Hamas released 30 hostages — 20 Israeli civilians, five soldiers, and five Thai nationals — and the bodies of eight slain Israeli captives during a ceasefire between January and March, and one additional hostage, a dual American-Israeli citizen, in May as a “gesture” to the United States.

The terror group freed 105 civilians during a weeklong truce in late November 2023, and four hostages were released before that in the early weeks of the war.

In exchange, Israel has freed some 2,000 jailed Palestinian terrorists, security prisoners, and Gazan terror suspects detained during the war.

Eight hostages have been rescued from captivity by troops alive, and the bodies of 44 have also been recovered, including three mistakenly killed by the Israeli military as they tried to escape their captors, and the body of a soldier who was killed in 2014.

The body of another soldier killed in 2014, Lt. Hadar Goldin, is still being held by Hamas and is counted among the 55 hostages.