Far from Israel, sister of Nepali Hamas hostage Bipin Joshi prays for his release
17-year-old Pushpa Joshi tells Haaretz that her brother, a 24-year-old agriculture student, ‘is a hostage in a war that isn’t his’; Joshi is one of 2 foreign captives still in Gaza
The family of Nepali agriculture student Bipin Joshi, who was abducted by Hamas terrorists from southern Israel on October 7, 2023, is working to bring him home through whatever means it can and is praying for a miracle.
Speaking to the Haaretz daily in an interview published Tuesday, Joshi’s sister Pushpa Joshi, 17, said that her options are limited, given her physical distance from Israel, and so she has turned to raising awareness for her brother’s plight on social media and through diplomatic channels.
“My family and I have only one prayer to God – that he safely rescues my brother as soon as possible,” she told the news outlet. “I’m also praying for the release of all the hostages.”
According to Haaretz, Nepali Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli has been in contact with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sissi amid efforts to secure Joshi’s release.
Turkey maintains ties with Hamas, while Egypt has been a key mediator — along with Qatar and the US — during the negotiations for a ceasefire and hostage deal between Israel and Hamas.
Joshi, 24, was abducted from Kibbutz Alumim during the October 7, 2023 attack, when thousands of Hamas-led terrorists poured into southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting 251 hostages, sparking the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip.
Joshi had arrived in Israel two months before the Hamas attack to work on a farm as part of his studies.
Bipin Joshi is a Nepali agriculture student who came to Israel in the ‘Learn & Earn’ program and was brutally taken hostage by Hamas terrorists on October 7th 2023.
His 17 year old sister, Pushpa, speaks of him in a heartbreaking interview, calling for the release of her… pic.twitter.com/MHdAFWp0ln
— Bring Them Home Now (@bringhomenow) March 24, 2025
“When all is said and done, he is an innocent student. My brother has no connection to the war between Israel and Hamas,” Pushpa told Haaretz. “He is a hostage in a war that isn’t his and is being punished through no fault of his own.”
Nepali media reported that the country’s Foreign Minister Arzu Rana Deuba sought US assistance for Joshi’s release during her meeting with US National Security Council official Ricky Gill on the margins of a conference in New Delhi last week.
Joshi’s heroics on the day of the Hamas onslaught have been made public by his close friend and fellow student Himanchal Kattel, who attributes his survival that day to Joshi.
As the pair huddled in a bunker, Joshi threw back a grenade that had been hurled into the shelter by a terrorist.
“He saved our lives. I wouldn’t have been alive today” if it weren’t for his swift action, Kattel told AFP last month.
Twenty-two foreign farm workers, 10 from Nepal and 12 from Thailand, were killed in Alumim before the Israel Defense Forces regained control of the area.
There has been no sign of life or information about Joshi’s well-being since he was abducted into Gaza, where he remains captive along with 58 other hostages, living and dead.
Israel believes 24 hostages are still alive in the Strip, including Joshi, a Thai national, and 22 Israelis. The IDF has confirmed the deaths of another 35 hostages.
Hamas released 30 hostages — 20 Israeli civilians, five soldiers and five Thai nationals — and the bodies of eight slain Israeli captives during a ceasefire between January and March 2025. The terror group freed 105 civilians during a weeklong truce in late November 2023, and four hostages were released before that in the early weeks of the war. In exchange, Israel has freed some 2,000 jailed Palestinian terrorists, security prisoners, and Gazan terror suspects detained during the war.
Eight hostages have been rescued from captivity by troops alive, and the bodies of 41 have also been recovered, including three mistakenly killed by the Israeli military as they tried to escape their captors, and the body of a soldier who was killed in 2014.
The body of another soldier killed in 2014, Lt. Hadar Goldin, is still being held by Hamas, and is counted among the 59 hostages.
