Family charityIn a remote village in western Nepal, thousands of miles from Israel, Mahananda Joshi sat anxiously in his home on Thursday, his phone in his hand.
The phone is not far from his hand now. And never be silent. He is waiting for news of his son Bipin Joshi, a 23-year-old Nepali agriculture student who was kidnapped by Hamas and taken to Gaza.
Anytime the phone rings, Mahananda, a local teacher, thinks it might bring news of Pippin, or even — his deepest hope — his son's voice on the line.
“Unfortunately, there is always someone else,” Mahananda said.
Bibin was one of dozens of foreign workers kidnapped alongside Israelis when Hamas attacked on October 7, 2023.
Twenty-four of them were later released – 23 from Thailand and one from the Philippines – but Pippin and nine others remained.
It was not clear why.
Bipin's mother, Padma, said that the last time Bipin's mother spoke to him was on October 6, the day before he was kidnapped.
He assured her that he ate well, and showed off the clothes he was wearing.
The next time the family saw him was in a video taken from Shifa Hospital in Gaza, shown to them by Israeli officials, who asked them to identify him.
This was confirmation that he was taken alive.
The BBC has now learned that Bipin is believed to still be alive, but Nepal's ambassador to Israel, Dhan Prasad Pandit, said he had “no specific information” yet about Bipin's condition or whereabouts.
Family charityMahananda, Bipin's mother Padma, and her 18-year-old sister Puspa live in a small, white, one-story house in the village of Bispuri Mahendranagar, near the border with India.
They said that as of Thursday they had not heard anything from officials, only headlines announcing a ceasefire agreement.
The news gave them renewed hope.
“I feel like he will send me a message today or tomorrow saying, 'Mum, I'm free now and I'll come home right away,'” Padma said.
But relief for the Joshi family, if it comes, will not be so quick.
“Everything could collapse”
Bipin, along with the nine other foreign workers who remain hostage, is not expected to be released in the first phase cease-fire, Which will give priority to the release of elderly men, women and children.
The fear for the family is that while they wait, everything could change.
“Everything could fall apart,” Padma said with tears in her eyes.
The family's ordeal began on the day of the attack.
Bipin was one of several Nepali students on kibbutzim in southern Israel that day, and Mahananda, a teacher at a local school, received a phone call from one of them telling him that Bipin had been kidnapped.
At that point, Mahananda knew nothing about the Hamas attack nor the situation that was unfolding in Israel, and he struggled to understand what he was hearing.
It was later learned that 10 Nepali students were killed in the attack, and one of them – his son – was apparently taken hostage.
This feeling of disconnection has persisted for 15 agonizing months, Mahananda and Padma said Thursday.
The pain of each hostage family was great, but for some of those far from Israel, there was an additional sense of isolation.
“It was a very lonely experience,” Mahananda said.
Pandit, Nepal's ambassador to Israel, told the BBC that he was in regular contact with the family and visited the village.
Mahananda painted a slightly different picture, saying that the family received many visits from officials early in the war, but as the war continued, they were increasingly alone.
“Since the new ceasefire agreement, no one has come to see us or communicate with us at all,” he said.
“Everything we know comes from the news.”
Israeli President's Office spokesman Isaac Herzog, who has been working with hostage families for the past 15 months, said the office treats all hostages the same way, whether they are Israeli or from abroad, and is working hard to release them all. .
For some families, news of the ceasefire brings hope that their 15-month ordeal is over and that they will see their loved ones again within weeks.
For others, like the Joshi family, any hope must be tempered.
The longer they wait, the more likely the ceasefire agreement will collapse.
At home in Bispuri Mahendranagar on Thursday, Bipin's sister, Puspa, held a photo of her brother as she spoke.
Tears filled her eyes as she talked about him coming home. She was confident that he would do it.
“And when I see him again, I will hug him,” she said. “And crying.”
