Nepali hostage in Gaza not alive: Israel

Nepali student Bipin Joshi, who was taken captive by Hamas on 7 October 2023, was not on the list of those freed following the end of the bombardment and fighting in Gaza. 

On Monday morning, the Israeli military notified Bipin's family and Nepal’s ambassador to Israel Dhan Prasad Pandit, that there is no evidence of him still being alive. However, Nepal's Foreign Ministry is yet to be notified by Israel's government of Bipin's status.

The news came three days after a US-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Hamas came into effect, and hostage and prisoner exchanges by the two sides started Monday morning. 

Almost 2,000 Palestinians held in Israeli prisions are expected to be released by Israel in exchange for the hostages during the next phase of the peace deal between the two parties, and the bodies of deceased hostages remaining in Gaza are also expected to be returned. 

Bipin Joshi was among a group of Nepalis who had arrived in Israel in 2023 just weeks before 7 October 2023 as part of a ‘learn and earn’ program to work and earn in kibbutz farms there. 

Along with other students Joshi had been working on a farm in Kibbutz Alumim in southern Israel near Gaza. Ten Nepali students were killed while taking cover in shelters near their farms in two separate attacks by Hamas fighters. 

Joshi’s colleagues, fellow Nepalis who survived the attack, recall gunmen lobbing two grenades into the bunker that they had taken cover in. Bipin hurled one of the grenades out, they say, but the other one exploded, killing and injuring Nepalis inside.     

Shortly after, Bipin was captured by Hamas along with a Thai national and led away into Gaza. CCTV footage showed Bipin alive and at a hospital in Gaza on the day of the attack itself after he was taken hostage. 

Thirty-one Thai citizens, who like Nepalis worked in farms in Israel, were taken hostage during the Hamas attack, the highest number of foreign captives in October 2023. 

Deft Thai diplomatic engagement with officials from Iran, Egypt, and Qatar brought about the release of 23 of its nationals in 2023. Five more Thai nationals were released earlier this year. 

In August, Joshi’s family visited Israel at the invitation of the government and urged the international community to push for his return. Bipin’s mother Padma and sister Pushpa have been at the United Nations to lobby for his release. 

His family last week also released a video clip of Bipin briefly speaking on camera, reportedly obtained by Israel and said to be filmed in November 2023, around a month after he was taken captive. Joshi looks healthy in that video.

More than 67,000 Palestinians have been killed during the last two years of the genocide in Gaza. About 1,200 people were killed during the Hamas attack on 7 October 2023, while more than 251, including Bipin Joshi, were taken as captives. 

This is the third ceasefire implemented in Gaza since 7 October 2023 after previous ones in November 2023 and January 2025.

This 20-point deal facilitated by intermediaries US, Qatar, Turkey, and Egypt included terms for Hamas to give up its arms, and for a devastated Gaza to be governed by a Palestinian body of independent technocrats, while Israeli troops will withdraw in stages from Gaza. 

Hamas has agreed to relinquish control of Gaza, but has rejected the demand for disarmament, saying the group will demobilise but is prepared to resume fighting if Israel breaches the ceasefire. 

Following the ceasefire, Palestinians in Gaza have begun long journeys back to homes reduced to rubble by Israel’s two-year assault on the strip. The flow of humanitarian aid in the city has also increased following the peace deal. 

Israel's closure of humanitarian corridors in the past months had blocked the entry of food and medicine into Gaza, causing widespread famine. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) has said that the restriction of aid into the beseiged city has left as many as 54,600 children acutely malnourished. 

Meanwhile, US president Donald Trump landed in Israel on Monday as hostages were being released, and world leaders are expected to head to Egypt for an international summit to discuss the next steps in Gaza, Israel, and West Asia.