Thailand Launches Airstrikes on Cambodia as Border Peace Deal Collapses

The border between Thailand and Cambodia woke up to war again on Monday, and it happened in the most unsettling way — the sound of jets cutting across the sky long before most families had even stepped outside their homes. Thai officials said they launched airstrikes only after one of their soldiers was killed earlier in the morning, insisting they were responding to Cambodian troops who had pushed too close and fired first. To them, this wasn’t an escalation but a necessary step to protect Thai villages that have been living under the shadow of heavy Cambodian artillery for weeks.

Across the border, Cambodia painted a completely different picture. Officials there said they never fired the first shot and accused Thailand of “reckless aggression,” claiming that Thai aircraft struck two Cambodian positions without warning. As always happens in these border clashes, it’s the civilians who immediately feel the consequences — Cambodian families packing what they can carry, Thai residents being rushed away from danger, everyone suddenly thrown back into the fear they hoped they’d left behind.

What makes all this even heavier is the timing. Not long ago, both countries were smiling for cameras as they signed a peace deal in Kuala Lumpur — an agreement pushed forward with the involvement of Donald Trump and regional leaders who wanted the conflict finally buried. For a moment, it felt like things might actually calm down. But that optimism didn’t last. A landmine explosion in November injured a Thai soldier, and Bangkok quickly froze parts of the agreement, saying Cambodia wasn’t holding up its end. Phnom Penh denied it, of course, and from there the old distrust crept back in.

Monday’s airstrikes feel like the clearest sign yet that the peace deal, however ambitious, was fragile from the start. Along the border, people don’t talk about geopolitics — they talk about whether they’ll sleep in their own beds tonight, whether the school will open tomorrow, whether the next blast will land closer than the last.

Regional leaders are already calling for calm, urging both sides to step back before things spiral into something much harder to control. But as of now, the air smells of smoke again, families are running again, and the peace that once seemed close suddenly feels very far away.