When Hamas terrorists stormed the farm he was working on in Kibbutz Alumim, Nepali agriculture student Bipin Joshi risked his life to save his friends, who fear for his fate after 500 days he has been in captivity in Gaza.

Unlike some others seized during the October 7, 2023 attack — when thousands of terrorists killed 1,200 people and abducted 251 in southern Israel, sparking the war in Gaza — there has been no information about the 24-year-old since that day.

“He knew nothing about this war, and it’s been 16 months that he is captive,” said Himanchal Kattel, a close friend who has Joshi to thank for surviving the attack.

“People should talk more about him,” said Kattel, also a Nepali agriculture student who was working with Joshi at the farm in Alumim, near the Gaza border.

Few in Israel remember Joshi’s name or recognize the face of one of the five foreign hostages still held in Gaza since the 2023 attack — just two of whom, including Joshi, are thought to be alive.

In Nepal, his father Mahananda Joshi told AFP the family was extremely worried, waiting “for any news — anything — about him.”

“So many others have been released but our son remains captive,” said the father.

Bipin Joshi had arrived in Israel just two months before the Hamas attack, to work on a farm as part of his studies.

When terrorists reached Alumim, Kattel recalled, they hurled a grenade into a bunker where a group of Nepali workers were sheltering after hearing warning sirens in the early morning.

Without hesitating, Joshi picked up the grenade and threw it back at the assailants, said Kattel, one of the few survivors of the attack on the farm.

“He saved our lives. I wouldn’t have been alive today” if it weren’t for his swift action, he added.

Twenty-two foreign farm workers, 10 from........

© The Times of Israel