Nepal’s interim prime minister on Monday draped a national flag over the coffin of returned Gaza hostage Bipin Joshi, released under the ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas.
“Bipin is a son of all Nepali mothers,” Sushila Karki said at a ceremony held at the airport in Kathmandu, after his body was flown back to the capital.
“The name Bipin will be immortal; no one can forget him for his bravery and the hardships he had to face.”
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Joshi, an agriculture student who was 22 when kidnapped, had arrived in Israel just weeks before Hamas’s attack on October 7, 2023, during which Palestinian militants took 251 hostages to Gaza.
He was taken from a kibbutz in southern Israel, where 10 Nepali nationals were killed.
Joshi was reported to have saved his friends by throwing a grenade back at the assailants storming the community, according to a survivor.
The family’s only sign of life from Joshi was a short video clip, believed to have been filmed in November 2023, and later recovered by the Israeli military.
His family had held out hope he was alive, until the Israeli government informed Kathmandu that he had been confirmed dead on October 14, according to Nepal’s foreign ministry.
“We waited for two years, and really hoped he would come home — but in vain,” his cousin Kishor Joshi told AFP.
Israel’s government said Joshi had been a student who came “to learn agriculture and build a better future”, in a post on social media.
His remains will be flown on to his family in Kanchanpur in southwestern Nepal.
“An innocent life, full of promise, stolen too soon,” Israel said.
The post Nepal PM Honours Slain Hostage Returned From Gaza appeared first on Channels Television.
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