In a remote village in western Nepal, thousands of miles from Israel, Mahananda Joshi sat anxiously at home on Thursday, cellphone in hand.

Now the phone is not far from his hand. And never remain silent. He is awaiting news about his son Bipin Joshi. Bipin Joshi is a 23-year-old Nepali agriculture student who was kidnapped by Hamas and taken to Gaza.

Whenever the phone rang, Mahananda, a local teacher, thought it might bring news about Bipin or even – his deepest hope – his son’s voice on the phone.

“Sadly, it’s always someone else,” Mahananda said.

Bipin was one of dozens of foreign workers kidnapped along with Israelis when Hamas launched an attack on October 7, 2023.

Subsequently, 24 people were released, 23 from Thailand and one from the Philippines, but Bipin and nine others remained.

The reason has never been clear.

Bipin’s mother, Padma, last spoke to him on October 6, she said, the day before he was abducted.

He assured her that he was eating well and showed what he was wearing.

The next time the family saw him, it was Israeli officials who showed them footage from Gaza’s Al-Shifa hospital and asked them to confirm his identity.

This was confirmation that he was captured alive.

The BBC has now learned that Bipin is believed to be alive, but Nepal’s ambassador to Israel, Dhan Prasad Pandit, said he had “no specific information yet on Bipin’s condition or whereabouts”.

Mahananda, Bipin’s mother Padma and 18-year-old sister Puspa live in a small white one-story house in Bispuri Mahendranagar village, near the Indian border.

They said they had heard nothing from officials as of Thursday, only headlines announcing a ceasefire.

The news gave them all new hope.

“I think he will message me today or tomorrow and say mom, I am free now and I will come home immediately,” Padma said.

But relief for the Joshi family, even if it comes, will not come quickly.

Biping and the nine other foreign workers still held hostage are not expected to be released in the first phase ceasefire, This will prioritize the release of older men, women and children.

The family is worried that everything could change while they wait.

“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 at a kibbutz in southern Israel that day. Mahananda, a teacher at a local school, received a call from one of the students saying that Bipin had been kidnapped.

At the time, Mahananda knew nothing about the Hamas attacks or the situation unfolding in Israel, and he struggled to understand what he was hearing.

He later learned that 10 Nepali students had been killed in the attack and that one of them – his son – appeared to have been taken hostage.

Mahananda and Padma said on Thursday that the feeling of isolation, which has lasted for 15 months, has been painful.

The pain for each hostage family is immense, but for some far away from Israel, there is an added sense of isolation.

“It was a very lonely experience,” Mahananda said.

Pandit Pandit, Nepal’s ambassador to Israel, told the BBC that he had been in regular contact with the family and had visited the village.

Mahananda paints a slightly different picture, saying that the family did receive many visits from officials early in the war, but that they became increasingly isolated as time went on.

“Since the new ceasefire agreement, no one has come to see us or communicate with us,” he said.

“Everything we know comes from the news.”

Isaac Herzog, a spokesman for the Israeli presidential office, which has been working with the hostages’ families for the past 15 months, said the Israeli presidential office treats all hostages equally, whether Israelis or from abroad, and Efforts are underway to get them all released. .

For some families, news of the ceasefire brought hope that their 15-month ordeal was coming to an end and that they would be able to 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 it is that the ceasefire will collapse.

Bipin’s sister Pushpa held a picture of her brother as she spoke at her home in Mahendra Nagar, Bispre on Thursday.

Her eyes filled with tears when she talked about him coming home. She believed he would.

“When I see him again, I’m going to hug him,” she said. “And cry.”