{"id":75549,"date":"2025-10-15T05:46:19","date_gmt":"2025-10-15T05:46:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/75549\/"},"modified":"2025-10-15T05:46:19","modified_gmt":"2025-10-15T05:46:19","slug":"as-israels-hostages-came-home-a-mother-from-nepal-learned-her-son-would-not","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/75549\/","title":{"rendered":"As Israel\u2019s Hostages Came Home, a Mother From Nepal Learned Her Son Would Not"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cMother, your little child has grown so tall. Yet still I run to your arms when I fall,\u201d wrote Bipin Joshi, the first member of his family to seek work outside Nepal, tending orange and lemon groves on a work-study agricultural program near Israel\u2019s border with Gaza. \u201cToday I chase horizons wide. But your lullabies still echo inside.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bipin\u2019s words had fortified Padma, a primary-school teacher from Mahendranagar, a small town in the Himalayan foothills, who had somehow found herself the face of a two-year diplomatic campaign to retrieve the sole Nepali national held in Gaza. Yet on Monday, she gathered with her family on a phone call with an Israeli military officer who conveyed news they had long feared. Twenty captives were crossing over Israel\u2019s border to jubilant homecomings, but Bipin wasn\u2019t among them. His status, they were warned, was \u201cunconfirmed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ten hours later, the officer called back with an even grimmer update: Hamas had just released a public statement, saying that Bipin\u2019s remains would soon be delivered to Israel.<\/p>\n

Padma listened in silence, then broke down. She hadn\u2019t slept all night, she said in an interview: \u201cWe have been in so much pain.\u201d<\/p>\n

It still isn\u2019t clear how, or exactly when, he died. The Israeli military said he was \u201cmurdered in captivity,\u201d without providing further information or their forensic analysis of the body, which on Tuesday was on its way to Nepal. Hamas didn\u2019t respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n

Israeli policemen saluted as vehicles carrying the bodies of four hostages passed in Tel Aviv on Monday.<\/p>\n

In a mass kidnapping of more than 250 people from 13 countries, the experience of the Joshis was singular: Their son was the only foreigner whose plight remained unclear\u2014whether he was dead or alive\u2014until Monday, when news of his fate broke just as Israel and the Palestinian territories erupted in celebration. The ordeal of his parents\u2014who live near the Mahakali River that winds between India and Nepal\u2014is a reminder of how the Hamas attacks reverberated around the world. The attacks killed around 1,200 people and sparked a war that left more than 67,000 Palestinians dead and redrew regional geopolitics.<\/p>\n

Bipin was the sole captive from Nepal, a country with so little experience in international hostage crises that weeks after his kidnapping, the then-foreign minister asked reporters for The Wall Street Journal how he could reach the Red Cross. The Joshis watched as other governments\u2014from Thailand to the Philippines\u2014retrieved migrant farmworkers, including some who had harvested fruit on the same kibbutz as Bipin. More powerful governments, including the U.S. and U.K., brought home citizens. Meanwhile, the Joshis fell into a grinding two-year-long quest to answer the most basic question, whose final answer was only provided on Monday: Was Bipin alive?<\/p>\n

What Padma and her husband Mahanand knew was that Bipin, who was 22 at the time of his kidnapping, acted as a hero on Oct. 7<\/a>. When two grenades slid across the floor of a basement in Kibbutz Alumim, he lunged forward, picked up one and lobbed it to safety. A second grenade exploded, throwing five of his friends to the floor, gravely injured.<\/p>\n

He had gathered fellow workers in the safety of a nearby kitchen, then tried to rally the group to slip back out and rescue victims. Before they could move, though, Hamas returned with reinforcements. The gunmen barged through the kitchen doors and grabbed Bipin and three Thai farmers hiding nearby.<\/p>\n

Bipin Joshi at Kibbutz Alumim in southern Israel.<\/p>\n

His family learned only that he had made it to Gaza still alive, in shape. Their last glimpse of him came in a proof-of-life video, filmed in the first month of his abduction, his eyes locked confidently on the camera.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s me, Bipin Joshi. I\u2019m from Nepal,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m a student. I work on an agricultural farm.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the two years that followed, the Joshi family fought to obtain even basic data points on the whereabouts of their son: They knew his cellphone had pinged from Gaza, and that he had been treated in a local hospital.<\/p>\n

Over the course of that journey, Padma and her daughter, Pushpa, would travel thousands of miles to seek answers in Israel and the U.S. The small-town family from Nepal became, by necessity, versed in the distant Middle Eastern conflict that had claimed their son, whose college education they hoped might transform their fortunes.<\/p>\n

Along the way, their own government would be toppled<\/a> in mass demonstrations, and replaced with a new post-revolutionary caretaker government. For officials of the old guard, their inability to return a single young citizen kidnapped while chasing opportunities abroad he couldn\u2019t find at home would become a sore point and symbol of an elite\u2019s failures. Nepali officials would find themselves inundated with calls from journalists and family members asking: Where was Bipin?<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople say you\u2019re the ambassador, you cannot return even one hostage, and I am saying he is not in my pocket where I can pick and give him to you,\u201d said Nepal\u2019s ambassador to Israel, Dhan Prasad Pandit. \u201cWhat can I do? We are not the army, we cannot take action like America did with Osama bin Laden in Pakistan, Abbottabad. We are just waiting for results.\u201d<\/p>\n

Proud mother<\/p>\n

When Bipin won a place to study in Israel, Padma didn\u2019t want him to go. But Bipin persuaded her, promising to return to Nepal to start a commercial banana or walnut plantation. \u201cHe was saying, \u2018Mom, it\u2019s only a matter of 11 months; I will see the world, learn some good skills and come back to start my own commercial farming,\u2019\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

He called her every day and kept a diary, sketching rap lyrics and poems in blue ballpoint pen. He rapped about the hardships of Nepali farmers in his politically conscious song\u2014\u201cPrashna,\u201d meaning \u201cQuestion\u201d\u2014over a gritty, Wu-Tang Clan-style beat.<\/p>\n

Pushpa Joshi, Bipin’s sister, looking at a photo of her brother as her mother, Padma Joshi, looks on.<\/p>\n

The first Padma heard of the Hamas attacks was on the morning of Oct. 8, 2023, when a family member called to say Bipin was missing and 10 Nepali students were dead. Almost the only information Nepal\u2019s government had to work with was a scrap of paper with a note in Hebrew\u2014shared by an Israeli farmer at Kibbutz Alumim, where Bipin worked along with 16 other Nepali agriculture students. Six of them were alive, listed alongside their registration numbers. Only one of the Nepalis, worker number 1725, was annotated: \u201cmissing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAll the rest are dead,\u201d the note said.<\/p>\n

By early November of 2023, Thai authorities managed to secure proof that 19 of their nationals, photographed in captivity, were alive, accompanied by assurances from Hamas that the Thais would come home soon. Thailand, which has a small Muslim minority, had contact with Hamas via intermediaries in Iran and neighboring Malaysia.<\/p>\n

By contrast, Nepal focused its outreach on Israel and the governments mediating the conflict: Qatar, Egypt and Turkey. The Nepali government dispatched a DNA collection team to the Joshi home to check the sample against unclaimed bodies, but none matched. The family\u2019s frustration was building. They descended on a local government office with a group of Bipin\u2019s friends waving placards: \u201cWake up Nepal government\u201d and \u201cSave Bipin Joshi.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Nov. 19, Israel published security camera footage<\/a> taken from the hallways of Gaza\u2019s Al-Shifa hospital: The footage held little more than a grainy flicker of a young man being bundled in by armed militants, but to friends and colleagues his identity seemed clear: It was Bipin.<\/p>\n

The images were captured around 11 a.m. on Oct. 7, and released only after Israel seized control of the medical center. The video showed a tall, lean man wearing a sky-blue T-shirt, dark blue shorts and distinctive striped sandals like those worn by Bipin on the day he was abducted.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur hopes have risen,\u201d his father, Mahanand Joshi, said in an interview that month. \u201cBut they are nothing more than hopes as of now. We yearn to see him in person.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mahanand Joshi, Bipin\u2019s father, in his son\u2019s room.<\/p>\n

In the family\u2019s four-room, single-story home, the Joshi family watched with mixed emotions as Hamas released a string of hostages. The militant group was clearly using its captives for leverage in negotiations but neither the Nepali government nor its international allies could even say whether their son was alive.<\/p>\n

Determined to keep the story in the news, the family and Bipin\u2019s friends organized \u201cBring Back Bipin\u201d marches in Mahendranagar and other towns, emulating the nightly vigils of Israeli families in Tel Aviv\u2019s so-called Hostage Square.<\/p>\n

Global quest<\/p>\n

By August 2025, Padma was standing on Hostage Square with Pushpa, meeting other captives\u2019 families before heading to the residence of Israeli President Isaac Herzog to discuss Bipin\u2019s case.<\/p>\n

In the previous months, she had met with a succession of Nepali foreign ministers and prime ministers as governments collapsed and the country lurched through political turmoil. Nepal\u2019s leaders had been raising his case with Turkey\u2019s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi and Qatari royalty, but the trail appeared to be cold.<\/p>\n

Pushpa Joshi standing at the microphone at a rally organized by hostage families that she and her mother, Padma, attended in Tel Aviv in August.<\/p>\n

Israeli defense officials were privately briefing reporters and some Nepali officials that they understood Bipin was likely dead, but Padma refused to believe it. \u201cIt was the hope of bringing Bipin home alive that was giving her strength,\u201d said Kishor Chandra Joshi, Bipin\u2019s cousin.<\/p>\n

Padma also toured the newly renovated farmland of Kibbutz Alumim, where her son had lived and worked. The Nepali embassy handed her the black bag with Bipin\u2019s belongings and inside was a diary, containing the poem.<\/p>\n

In September, Hamas appeared to offer evidence Bipin was alive, publishing his face on a press release with 48 hostages\u2019 photographs, captioned: \u201ca farewell photo.\u201d But when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu read a list of 20 surviving hostages at the United Nations, on Sept. 26, Bipin\u2019s name wasn\u2019t among them.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were hoping that for some international sympathy and goodwill Hamas would keep and return Bipin alive. He as a Nepali had no stake in the conflict,\u201d said Chandra Joshi.<\/p>\n

On Friday, as a nascent peace deal promised an end to a hostage crisis that stretched for 734 days, Netanyahu\u2019s office summoned Nepal\u2019s ambassador to Israel for a meeting.<\/p>\n

Joshi\u2019s name wasn\u2019t on Hamas\u2019 final list of hostages, but they would search Gaza\u2019s tunnels, an adviser to the prime minister said.<\/p>\n

Padma was in North Carolina with Pushpa, staying with a relative, after meeting U.N. Secretary-General Ant\u00f3nio Guterres in New York. Shortly after midnight on Monday, she received the first of two calls that would end her search.<\/p>\n

Write to Krishna Pokharel at krishna.pokharel@wsj.com<\/a>, Drew Hinshaw at drew.hinshaw@wsj.com<\/a> and Joe Parkinson at joe.parkinson@wsj.com<\/a><\/p>\n

\"As As Israel\u2019s Hostages Came Home, a Mother From Nepal Learned Her Son Would Not \"As As Israel\u2019s Hostages Came Home, a Mother From Nepal Learned Her Son Would Not \"As As Israel\u2019s Hostages Came Home, a Mother From Nepal Learned Her Son Would Not \"As As Israel\u2019s Hostages Came Home, a Mother From Nepal Learned Her Son Would Not <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cMother, your little child has grown so tall. Yet still I run to your arms when I fall,\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":75550,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[52962,51,42,53472,21663,5086,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-75549","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-bipin-joshi","tag-hamas","tag-headlines","tag-hostage-crisis","tag-israeli-military","tag-nepal","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75549"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75549\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}