Kathmandu, Nepal: When the truce was struck, the family thanked God. Briefly, there was hope that Bipin Joshi might finally come home.
On Monday evening, after two years held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip, he did return – in a coffin delivered to his home in the verdant foothills of far western Nepal.
Relatives of Bipin Joshi gather as his body is returned to Kanchanpur, Nepal, on Tuesday.Credit: AFP
As millions lit candles in their homes to celebrate Tihar, Nepal’s festival of lights, few did so in his home town, Mahendranagar. Dozens gathered to await his body. When it arrived, his family broke down in tears, still in disbelief that he had become caught in someone else’s war, thousands of kilometres away.
Joshi was 23 when he left Nepal for Israel as part of an agricultural study program. Less than three weeks into his time there, he was taken captive by Hamas from a southern Israeli kibbutz on October 7, 2023, according to Israeli officials.
Bipin Joshi’s family believed he was still alive despite almost no information about his condition. Credit: AP
After his abduction, his family heard almost nothing about his condition, but they never stopped waging a desperate campaign to remind the world of his existence and bring him home. They travelled to Israel and the United States in search of someone who might be able to help.
“Tihar is the festival of lights, but it will always be a reminder of darkness for us,” said Kishor Joshi, his cousin. “After two years of sleepless nights and struggle for his release, all we receive today is his lifeless body.”
The news of his death has shattered the family, who, until the last moment, held faith that he was alive. In interviews with The New York Times hours after Hamas agreed this month to release all hostages, and later, when Israel accepted the proposal, Pushpa Joshi, his 18-year-old sister, said she was confident she would see her brother’s “smiling face” again.
The Israeli government had expressed concern about his life; when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, speaking at the United Nations, read a list of the names of the remaining hostages believed to be alive, Joshi’s was not among them. In statements after his body was returned by Hamas, the Israeli military said it believed he had been killed in captivity early in the war, which could not be confirmed independently.
