BANGKOK — Thailand launched airstrikes along its disputed border with Cambodia on Monday after clashes that killed a Thai soldier and four Cambodian civilians, sending families scrambling as both sides accused the other of shattering a fragile ceasefire. Thai officials say the strikes targeted Cambodian rocket batteries threatening Thai towns, while Phnom Penh calls the operation an unprovoked assault that violates an October peace deal brokered by former U.S. President Donald Trump, Dec. 8, 2025.
Ceasefire collapses as Thai airstrikes return to the border.
The latest round of Thai airstrikes began before dawn, with fighter jets and drones targeting what Bangkok describes as Cambodian artillery depots and rocket launchers in several sectors of the frontier. Thai army spokesperson Maj. Gen. Winthai Suvaree said one soldier was killed and at least eight were wounded after Cambodian forces allegedly opened fire on Thai positions, prompting the call for air support, according to a dispatch from Reuters.
Cambodia’s defence ministry disputes that account, insisting its units have not fired back and accusing Thailand of deliberate escalation. Information Minister Neth Pheaktra said at least four Cambodian civilians were killed and others wounded in border provinces Oddar Meanchey and Preah Vihear, where villagers reported homes shredded by shrapnel and hurried night-time evacuations, Al Jazeera reported.
‘Running out of time’ for civilians
Thai authorities say more than 385,000 people have been told to leave high-risk areas in four border provinces, with about 35,000 already in official shelters and many more staying with relatives. Local officials in Buriram and Surin describe schools converted into dormitories and clinics under strain as families arrive with little more than clothes and phones.
On the Cambodian side, officials report more than a thousand families moving away from the frontier as air raids continue, closing schools and disrupting harvests in some of the country’s poorest districts. Aid workers warn that prolonged displacement could quickly turn the border into a humanitarian crisis, especially if shelling and bombing damage roads, hospitals and water systems.
From the July war to today’s escalation
Thai airstrikes first grabbed global headlines in July, when an F-16 bombed Cambodian positions after days of artillery exchanges that left at least 48 people dead and temporarily displaced about 300,000 residents on both sides of the border, in a sequence of escalation mapped out in a conflict timeline by Reuters. That five-day war ended with a Trump- and Malaysia-brokered ceasefire and an expanded peace accord signed in Kuala Lumpur in October, which committed both governments to withdraw rocket systems and heavy artillery from the front line.
Those commitments began to unravel last month after a landmine blast maimed a Thai soldier, an incident Bangkok blamed on freshly laid Cambodian mines and used to suspend de-escalation measures. The current flare-up also echoes the earlier phase of the border war in late July, when Thailand scrambled F-16 jets, and both sides traded heavy artillery across multiple fronts, killing civilians and uprooting more than 130,000 residents, according to contemporaneous reports from Reuters on the initial air strike and a follow-up account of expanding artillery battles by the same outlet. Since then, monitors have logged multiple skirmishes, and both governments have traded accusations of ceasefire violations, information warfare and cross-border provocations.
Regional fears over further Thai airstrikes
Regional leaders, including Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, are urging restraint and renewed talks amid fears that repeated cycles of Thai airstrikes and Cambodian counter-moves could drag the conflict beyond the border into a wider regional security crisis. Diplomats say options now range from bolstering an ASEAN monitoring mission to pushing for a new U.N.-backed process if the current truce framework collapses completely.
For now, artillery bursts and the roar of jets are shaping daily life for communities strung along the 817-kilometre frontier, where villagers say they have seen disputes over temples and farmland turn into wars before. Many are asking whether this latest round of fighting will end with a durable political settlement — or simply pause until the next wave of Thai airstrikes and evacuations.
