It was quite a relief from the agonising experience of two long years for Nepal and for Bipin Joshi’s family as well when news pertaining to the release of 20 remaining hostages held by Hamas militants was flashed to the world through a US brokered peace deal between Israel and Hamas dated on October 8, 2025. And just after 5 days of relief from the prolonged agonising experience, a gloomy day descended on Nepal when the ‘mortal remains’ of Bipin Joshi was handed over by Hamas to Israel as all the Nepali citizens were expecting him to return alive from the Hamas captivity on October 13, 2025 to mark the end of enduring tortuous wait for more than two years. The sordid saga of the painful death of Bipin Joshi in Hamas captivity overwhelmed the Nepali citizens and engulfed the nation’s collective consciousness abruptly. Nepal was reeling under pain, no doubt.
As per the deal, Hamas agreed to release all the remaining hostages on October 13, 2025 in exchange for 250 Palestinian prisoners and over 1700 detainees from Gaza held by Israel to go ahead with the first phase of the peace plan. And the remains of 28 dead hostages were to be handed over by Hamas in phases starting from October 13 itself. The Gaza peace summit at Sharm El Sheikh (Egypt) was held on October 13, 2025 to implement the first phase of the Gaza peace plan after the Gaza ceasefire effected on October 10, 2025 between Israel and Hamas. According to the Gaza Health Ministry (GHM) and Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as well as other media and academic sources, the Gaza war killed over 70,100 people (68,172 Palestinians and 1,983 Israelis) as of October 7, 2025.
Hamas, an Islamic militant group
Hamas, an Islamic militant group, had taken over the Gaza Strip in Palestine from the Fatah-ruled Palestinian Authority (PA) and ruled over it since June 14, 2007 until the Gaza war (October 7, 2023 – October 7, 2025), in which it lost control of 75 percent of its territory. Hamas didn’t go well with the rival Palestinian authority that exercises control over the Palestinian enclaves in the West Bank. Israel and Hamas, along with other Palestinian militant groups based in Gaza, had frequently engaged in violent armed conflict since 2007 resulting in loss of lives on both sides, which also includes the major wars between them in 2008-2009, 2012, and 2014 before the Gaza war. The United States along with Australia, Canada, Ecuador, Israel, Japan, New Zealand, Paraguay, the United Kingdom, and the European Union have designated Hamas as a terrorist organization.
Nepal paid huge price in Hamas terrorist attack
Bipin Joshi, the Nepali Hindu citizen, who visited Israel under 'Learn and Earn program' had been taken hostage along with 250 other individuals when Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups launched a surprise attack on Israel near the Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023. They killed some 1,200 Israelis and foreign nationals (from the United States, Britain, France, Argentina, Thailand, Nepal and others). Three thousand people were grievously wounded in this heinous attack. South Asian Countries were divided on Hamas attacks on Israel in which ten Nepali citizens lost their lives in open barbaric terrorist attacks. Nepal airlifted 253 more Nepali citizens from the war-stricken area. Only four countries from South Asia, namely, Nepal, India, Sri Lanka and Bhutan condemned the terrorist attack of Hamas on Israel while all of them advocate for two-state solutions between Israel and Palestine for long lasting peace based on international parameters agreed upon between both the states.
The third-deadliest terrorist attack of all time
On that ominous day of October 7, the largest number of Jews were killed (and severely wounded) in a single day since the Holocaust, and the tragic incident currently ranks as the third-deadliest terrorist attack of all time after the Islamic State massacres and the 9/11 attacks (by al-Qaeda against the United States in 2001). The world was shocked by this surprise air, land, and sea attack perpetrated by the Palestinian Islamist militant group Hamas. At least forty-four nations minced no words to publicly express their unequivocal condemnation of Hamas and explicitly decried its tactics of terrorism as the heinous deed and almost half of them supported Israel's right to defend itself as an attack on its sovereignty.
The complex tangle of Israel-Palestine conflict
While the Gaza peace summit at Sharm El Sheikh (Egypt) has given hope to the world as military operations have stopped for now, it has raised strong skepticism regarding the long-term permanent peace between Palestine and Israel in the wake of constant refusal of a fair number of Islamic countries to recognize the state of Israel. Regional players of the Middle-East such as Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iran, Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq, had placed responsibility on Israel for the Hamas terrorist attacks. Within a week, several countries such as UAE, Bahrain, and China had modified their primary statements and changed their stand to include apparent condemnation of the killing and kidnapping of Israeli civilians after a second thought. Overall assessment of the world response and reaction to both the terrorist attack of Hamas on Israel and the consequent Gaza war is really sectarian in nature and hence conveniently loaded.
Hamas is not alone in not recognizing the state of Israel as almost 25 UN member states do not recognize existence of Israel in which most of them are members of the Arab League (Iraq, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, Yemen, Algeria, Comoros, Djibouti, Mauritania, and Somalia). There are ten more non-Arab Muslim countries who do not recognize the state of Israel. These countries such as Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Brunei, Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia, Maldives, Mali, Niger, and Pakistan are also members of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation. This is also the major reason why Israel-Palestine conflict has been projected as less political and more religious. Israel often calls its military endeavors as a valiant struggle for their own existence that is rooted in anti-Semitic (as well as antizionist) attitude against Jews. Even then, Egypt and Jordan – the immediate neighbors of Israel have given recognition to the state of Israel. The United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco have established normalized bilateral ties with Israel as part of the 2020 Abraham Accords, mooted and framed by the US during President Donald Trump’s first administration. The overarching goal of the Abraham Accords was to defuse tensions in the Middle East by encouraging Arab states to establish diplomatic relations with Israel. However, there are still several Arab states who have preferred not to follow Abraham accords.
Hamas and Israel missing at Sharm El Sheikh
The conspicuous absence of representatives from both the sides – Israel and Hamas at Sharm El Sheikh disappointed the peace observers who looked for optimistic outcomes from the US-brokered deal. Moreover, the presence of those countries who never recognized the state of Israel and not even planning to recognize it in future may have rendered Israel dispirited too. A report is taking round that Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, with the support of some other unspecified leaders, pushed back diplomatically against the idea of Benjamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of Israel, attending the Gaza peace summit whereas Egypt wanted both Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Netanyahu to join the summit to concretize the agreement to end the war in Gaza and reaffirm their commitment to it. Regrettably, this was not allowed to happen and even the US president Donald Trump didn’t press for it.
Obsession of Pakistan and Nobel peace prize
Another unexpected rather bizarre incident of curious mix of opportunism and flattery unfolded at Sharm El Sheikh when a ceremony for implementing Gaza peace plan was turned into another new nomination of Nobel peace prize for Donald Trump for the year 2026 by none other than the Pakistani Prime Minister, Shehbaz Sharif, who at the behest of the US President took a center stage to boisterously credit him for stopping ‘Operation Sindoor’ – the 4-days of anti-terrorist operation (from May 7, 2025 to May 10, 2025) against Pakistan. Ironically, India had launched Operation Sindoor to destroy the UN-designated terror hubs in Pakistan in response to the Pahalgam terror attack on tourists in which 26 civilians (- all men) were killed in front of their wife and children on April 22, 2025 by identifying their religion. The Resistance Front (TRF) – a proxy of Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (LeT) had taken the responsibility of killing the unarmed civilians enjoying their moments as tourists. India agreed to halt the operation for sometime after Pakistan’s DGMO (Directors General of Military Operations) called on India’s DGMO to make an appeal for cessation of military operations and no third party (or country) was involved in it. The awkward reference made by the Pakistani Prime Minister of anti-terrorist operation to destroy the UN-designated terrorist hubs in Pakistan in the presence of all the attendees of Gaza peace summit and more so in front of the US President Donald Trump whose administration – the US State Department has designated TRF (The Resistance Front) as a terrorist organization. In addition to this, the US State Department, after a careful review, has maintained the FTO (Foreign Terrorist Organization) designation of LET (Lashkar-e-Tayyiba), too. TRF has also claimed responsibility for several attacks against Indian security forces, including the one in 2024. Prime Minister Shehbaz seems to have shot himself in the foot when he likened the ‘anti-terror’ Operation Sindoor that was never intended on Pakistan and that too when it is still on for flushing the terrorists in and around India. His words were really out of place for the auspicious occasion yet they conjured up the mirror image of the terrorist attack in Pahalgam like the Hamas October 7, 2023 attack on Israel in which 11 innocent Nepali citizens lost their lives.
Pakistan never recognized the state of Israel and the Prime Minister Shehbaz was sharing the podium with the US President whose Gaza deal, as Donald Trump proclaims, will end generations of conflict between Arab Muslims and Jews in the Middle East. Even as Prime Minister Shehbaz endorsed the Gaza peace plan obsequiously, his countrymen – Pakistani Muslims led by ‘Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan’ (TLP) were clashing violently in cities like Lahore, Peshawar, and Islamabad with police against the US-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Hamas after two years of war in Gaza. They announced a protest march to the US embassy in Islamabad to voice their opposition to the peace deal. In a way, this is how Pakistani Muslims, if not all the non-Arab Muslims, look at the Gaza deal apropos Israel and Palestine.
Enigma of two-state solution
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, US President Donald Trump, Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan all signed a joint declaration at Sharm El Sheikh, which read as the “Trump Declaration for Enduring Peace and Prosperity.” Absence of signature from the representatives of Palestinian Authority, Hamas and Israel in the joint declaration of the Gaza peace summit didn’t bode well for establishing long-term peace in both Palestine and Israel. Palestine is a permanent non-member observer state at the UN and is recognized as a sovereign state by 157 of the UN's 193 member states. Recognition of Palestine as a sovereign state is not enough if Israel as a state is not recognized by the same numbers to go for two-state solutions for bringing peace in the Arab region. A considerable number of Islamic countries do not recognize the state of Israel but stand for Palestine as a sovereign state without any definite border and widely accepted unified structure of government. At the same time, so much has changed on the ground of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in the post-Gaza ceasefire period that it is almost impossible for Israel to forgo all the claims and its controlled territories just like that by rendering the Jews homeless. Israeli prime minister Netanyahu has signed a framework agreement to speed up development in the Israeli settlement of Maale Adumim located east of Jerusalem, in the West Bank, on September 11, 2025. “We are going to fulfil our promise that there will be no Palestinian state. This place belongs to us,” Netanyahu said at the event in Maale Adumim.
Highlights of Trump’s 20 points Gaza peace plan
Trump’s 20 points Gaza peace plan aims at demilitarizing and deradicalizing Gaza to make it a terror-free zone that does not pose a threat to its citizens and neighbors such as Israel and Egypt. At present, Gaza is under the control of the IDF (Israel Defense Forces). The IDF will not occupy Gaza and will cooperate with the ISF (International Stabilization Force), the peace guarantors, and the United States with a view to withdrawing from the region based on standards, milestones, and timeframes linked to demilitarization that will be agreed upon amongst them. The United States will work with Arab and international partners to develop a temporary International Stabilization Force (ISF) to immediately deploy the same in Gaza. The ISF will train and provide support to vetted Palestinian police forces in Gaza, and will consult with Jordan and Egypt who have extensive experience in this field. A peace guarantee will be provided by regional partners to ensure that Hamas, and the factions, comply with their obligations and that New Gaza poses no threat to its neighbors or its people. Hamas and other factions will have no role in the governance of Gaza, directly, indirectly, or in any form. All military, terror, and offensive infrastructure, including tunnels and weapon production facilities, will be destroyed and not rebuilt. Gaza will be governed under the temporary transitional governance of a technocratic, apolitical Palestinian committee, responsible for delivering the day-to-day running of public services and municipalities for the people in Gaza. New Gaza will be fully committed to building a prosperous economy and to peaceful coexistence with their neighbors.
Let peace be allowed to prevail over the inhabitants of that region and also upon the world. Let all the stakeholders be together to perform the task in hands with vigor, brilliance and sincerity. Let the region be free from any sectarian vengeance and hostility. Let us hope for the best.
Peace! Peace!! Peace!!!
(Binod Kumar Pathak is an editor (of academic books), educator and academician)
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