Mourners gathered for a farewell ceremony on Sunday at Ben Gurion airport in Israel for a Nepali hostage whose remains were released by Hamas.

Bipin Joshi, now 25, was among 17 Nepali students studying agriculture in southern Israel during the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack that ignited the war in Gaza.

Joshi arrived in Israel from his native Nepal a month before the attack.

He came to Israel on a student exchange to work and study agriculture at Kibbutz Alumim on the Gaza border.

Ten of the 17 Nepali students in the program were killed during the attack.

Joshi, who was able to throw a number of live grenades out of the bomb shelter where they were hiding, was injured and kidnapped.

Joshi’s sister, 17-year-old Pushpa Joshi, regularly traveled eight hours each direction on buses to Kathmandu from her home in western Nepal to lobby officials to secure her brother’s release.

In August, his family traveled to Israel to meet with President Isaac Herzog and join families demonstrating in Tel Aviv’s Hostage Square.

AP video shot by: Nicolae Dumitrache