KATHMANDU, Oct 19: Tributes were paid in Israel on Sunday to Bipin Joshi, the Nepali student abducted and killed by Hamas, before his body was flown to Nepal for final rites.
This has put an end to nearly two years of uncertainty and grief for his family and the Nepali public.
A farewell ceremony was held at Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv, where Israeli officials, Nepali diplomats, and members of the Nepali community paid their last respects. The ceremony, organized jointly by the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Nepali Embassy, marked the final step before Joshi’s remains were sent home.
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Joshi’s body is likely to arrive in Kathmandu on Monday and will then be taken to his hometown in Kanchanpur for cremation.
Earlier this week, Israeli authorities confirmed through DNA testing that the body handed over by Hamas was that of Bipin Joshi. The test results, verified by samples collected earlier from his mother and sister during their visit to Israel, also indicated that Joshi was killed toward the end of 2023.
Joshi’s body was handed over by Hamas to Israeli authorities on October 13 evening and transported to Tel Aviv for forensic testing before being prepared for repatriation.
Joshi’s mother and sister, who had recently traveled to the United States to raise his case at the United Nations Headquarters in New York, are now in Nepal to receive his remains.
Bipin Joshi, a student from Kanchanpur, was in Israel under the Learn and Earn agricultural training program when he was abducted from the Alumim Kibbutz on October 7, 2023, during Hamas’s surprise cross-border assault. Hamas has claimed that Joshi was killed in an Israeli airstrike while in captivity.
The confirmation of his death brings closure to one of the most painful chapters for Nepal since the 2023 Hamas attack that claimed the lives of 10 Nepali students and left several others injured or missing.
