Gaza ceasefire deal kindles hope of hostage son’s return to Nepal

In a remote village in western Nepal, thousands of miles from Israel, Mahananda Joshi sat restlessly at home Thursday, phone in hand.

The phone is not far from his hand now. And don’t be silent. He is waiting for the story of his son, Bipin Joshi, a 23-year-old Nepalese agricultural student who was kidnapped by Hamas and taken to Gaza.

Every time the phone rings, Mahananda, a local teacher, thinks it might bring news of Bipin, or – his biggest hope – his son’s voice on the Internet.

“Sadly, it’s always someone else,” Mahananda said.

Bipin was one of many foreign workers abducted along with Israel when Hamas attacked on 7 October 2023.

Twenty-four were later released – 23 from Thailand and one from the Philippines – but Bipin and nine others remained behind.

It is not known why.

Bipin’s mother Padma last spoke to him on October 6, she said, the day before he was abducted.

He assured her that she was eating well, and showed him the clothes she was wearing.

The next time the family saw him was on a video taken at Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza, shown to them by Israeli officials, who asked them to identify him.

It was proof that he was taken alive.

The BBC now understands that Bipin is believed to be still alive, but Nepal’s ambassador to Israel, Dhan Prasad Pandit, said he had “no information” about Bipin’s condition or whereabouts.

Mahananda, Bipin’s mother Padma and 18-year-old sister Puspa live in a small white, one-story house in the village of Bispuri Mahendranagar, near the border with India.

As of Thursday, they had heard nothing from officials, they said, but only headlines announcing a cease-fire agreement.

This news also gave them hope.

“I wonder if he will send me a message today or tomorrow saying, mom, I’m free and I’ll be back home right away,” said Padma.

But the Joshi family’s relief, if it comes, will not be so quick.

Along with nine other foreign workers who remain hostages, Bipin is not expected to be released in the first phase of the stop fire, which will prioritize the release of old men, women and children.

The family’s fear is that, while they wait, everything can change.

“Anything can end,” Padma said, tears welling in her eyes.

The family’s problems started on the day of the attack.

Bipin was one of several Nepalese students at a Kibbutzim in southern Israel that day, and Mahananda, a teacher at the local school, received a call from one of them that Bipin had been kidnapped.

At the time, Mahananda knew nothing about Hamas or the situation in Israel, and struggled to make sense of what he was hearing.

He later learned that 10 Nepali students had been killed in the attack, and one – his son – appeared to have been captured.

The feeling of distance has remained for 15 painful months, Mahananda and Padma said on Thursday.

The pain of each captive family has been great, but for some of those far from Israel there has been a growing sense of alienation.

“It’s been very lonely,” Mahananda said.

Mr. Pandit, Nepal’s ambassador to Israel, told the BBC that he spends time with the family and visited the village.

Mahananda painted a slightly different picture, saying that at the beginning of the war the family received many visits from the authorities, but as time went on they were left alone.

“Since the start of the new cease-fire agreement, no one has come to see us or talk to us at all,” he said.

“Everything we know comes from stories.”

The spokesman for the office of the President of Israel, Isaac Herzog, who has been working with the families of the hostages for the past 15 months, said that they treated all the hostages equally, whether they are Israelis or foreigners, and they are working hard for their release. .

For some families, news of a ceasefire brings hope that their 15-month ordeal will be over and they will see their loved ones again in a matter of weeks.

For others, like Joshi, any hope should be tempered.

The longer he waits, the more likely the cease-fire agreement will be.

At home in Bispuri Mahendranagar on Thursday, Bipin’s sister Puspa was carrying a picture of her brother speaking.

Tears filled his eyes as he talked about their arrival. He had the confidence to do so.

“And when I see him again, I will hug him,” he said. “It’s crying.”