Nepalese Student Bipin Joshi, Believed Dead In Hamas Captivity, Confirmed Dead After Gaza Hostage Release

Nepalese Student Bipin Joshi, Believed Dead In Hamas Captivity, Hope Fades As Israel Confirms His Death

Hope lingered for Bipin Joshi, the 23-year-old Nepalese agriculture student, even after the October 7, 2023, Hamas assault in Israel. Arriving in Israel only three weeks before the attack, Joshi had come with dreams of learning modern farming techniques at Kibbutz Alumim, near the Gaza border. Along with 16 other Nepalese students, he sought opportunities in agriculture, unaware of the imminent danger he would face in a region fraught with conflict.

When Hamas gunmen stormed the kibbutz, ten of his fellow Nepali students were killed, and chaos engulfed the community. In the moments before the attack reached them, Joshi and others were photographed huddled in a shelter with Thai workers. According to the only Nepalese survivor, Himanchal Kattel, Joshi showed remarkable courage during the assault. A grenade was thrown into their shelter, but Joshi caught it and hurled it away, preventing a fatal explosion and saving Kattel’s life.

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Injured during the attack, Joshi was captured along with two Thai workers. Surveillance footage from the kibbutz showed him being led toward Gaza by his captors, the last visual confirmation of his fate. The residents of Alumim later planted a Nepalese flag at the site where he had been seized, a tribute to his bravery and a symbol of the uncertainty that clouded his fate.

For months, Joshi’s family in western Nepal held on to every fragment of news. His 17-year-old sister, Pushpa, traveled eight hours daily to Kathmandu to appeal to officials for assistance. In August, the family journeyed to Israel, meeting President Isaac Herzog and participating in vigils at Tel Aviv’s Hostage Square. There, they held a photograph of Bipin alongside portraits of other hostages, clinging to hope that he would return alive.

A brief surge of optimism arrived when a video surfaced showing Joshi alive in captivity, though it was later confirmed to have been filmed around November 2023. Subsequent efforts to obtain further proof of life yielded nothing. In another widely shared social media clip, Joshi could be heard stating that he was from Nepal and had arrived in Israel 25 days before the conflict began, reinforcing the brief narrative of his life and struggles.

On Monday, as Hamas released 20 hostages under a new ceasefire agreement intended to free all survivors, Israel confirmed that Joshi was not among them. The grim news revealed that he had died in captivity, extinguishing the remaining hope for his family and community. Until this point, Joshi had been considered the only non-Israeli hostage still alive in Gaza.

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In his village, a small shrine now bears his photograph alongside the Nepalese flag, serving as a solemn reminder of his courage and the promise he could not fulfill. The conflict that began with the October 7 Hamas assault has claimed over 67,000 Palestinian lives, with nearly 90 percent of Gaza’s population displaced, while some 1,200 Israelis were killed and 251 kidnapped in the opening days of the war.

Bipin Joshi’s story embodies the fragility of life amid conflict and the human cost that reaches across borders. As his family mourns, the world is reminded of the enduring consequences of war, the lives disrupted, and the dreams unfulfilled, even as communities strive to remember those who showed bravery in the face of unimaginable danger.

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