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The Nepal government has brought 254 Nepalis stranded in war-torn Israel following the armed attacks by the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas.

They were brought home on a wide-body aircraft of the Nepal Airlines Corporation this morning. Government officials, including Minister for Foreign Affairs, NP Saud, had gone to Israel to evacuate them.

Talking to the mediapersons upon landing at the Tribhuvan International Airport, Minister Saud said 254 of the 503 Nepalis who wish to return home from Israel were brought in this rescue flight and the remaining ones would also be brought soon.

"Five hundred and fifty-seven Nepalis had provided their details in response to the request of the Embassy of Nepal based in Tel Aviv, Israel to the Nepalis wishing to relocate to safer places and return to Nepal to give their details online. Out of the 557 Nepalis, 503 had applied to return to Nepal and among them 254 have returned home today with us," the Foreign Affairs Minister said.

According to him, 54 Nepalis who requested to be relocated from risky areas have been shifted to safer areas in Israel.  He added that four Nepali nationals were injured in the attack by Hamas militants in the southern part of Israel and one among them has returned to Nepal today itself after treatment, another one has been discharged from hospital while two others are receiving treatment in hospital in Israel.

"A search has been intensified for Bipin Joshi who has gone missing following the attack. We will share the information as soon as we get additional information on this," Minister Saud said. 

Minister for Foreign Affairs Saud said that 10 Nepali students, who had gone to Israel from the Far-west University of Nepal, were killed in the attack and coordination is being established with the Government of Israel to repatriate their bodies.

"The Israeli side has said that it will take some time for handing over the bodies as it is required to complete the legal process and keep separate details of each and every deceased, and the number of bodies in Israel is currently very high," he said and requested the families and relatives of the deceased Nepalis to have patience for some time.

Minister Saud maintained that the government will make arrangements to rescue the remaining Nepalis who could not be brought this time due to some reasons, as regular commercial flights are also being operated from Tel Aviv at present.

The Minister for Foreign Affairs has thanked mediapersons, the Government of Israel and the Government of Nepal, the Embassy of Israel in Nepal and the Embassy of Nepal in Israel and the members of the flight crew, who helped in rescuing Nepali nationals and expressed their solidarity in this.

Nepal Police had kept three buses on stand-by at the airport to take the rescued Nepalis to various destinations.

According to the statistics of the Ministry, there are currently 265 Nepali students studying in Israel and about 4,500 working in various professions and sectors. The 265 Nepali students went to the Israeli government funded 'Learn and Earn' program.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has stated that the bodies of all the deceased will be brought to Nepal as soon as possible after the due procedures are completed.

Nepal Police has come up with a Kathmandu Valley-centric special security plan meant for public safety in view of upcoming festivals.  

The police force aims to deploy personnel and use modern technologies to enable people to celebrate the festivals in a safe and secure environment as part of its ‘Safe Valley, Our Commitment’ campaign.   

Effective security arrangements will be made during the festivals through proactive policing, which includes foot patrol, mobile patrol, plainclothes, picketing, striking, reserve force mobilization, CCTV surveillance, walk-through gates and drone surveillance for traffic and disaster management.

The idea is to use CCTV cameras and drones for surveillance in crowded areas. The police force will deploy personnel equipped with body-mounted GoPro cameras for the identification of suspicious individuals.

Plainclothes security personnel equipped with communication devices and small arms will be deployed in banks, financial institutions and other places where cash and precious jewelry are traded.  

“Public help desks with traffic police will be set up at 15 different locations in the valley,” said Dinesh Raj Mainali, spokesperson at the Kathmandu Valley Police Office.

Dog sniffing and search will be conducted at malls and major checkpoints in the valley.

A total of 1,800 traffic police personnel will be deployed to keep tabs on road traffic as there are chances of people driving under the influence of alcohol and drugs, black marketing of bus tickets, mismanagement of the public transport system, looting, speeding and road traffic accidents.

Altogether 7,633 police personnel will be deployed in the valley during the festivals.

Meanwhile, police have issued an advisory on ways to remain safe. The advisory cautions people not to eat foodstuffs offered by strangers. It alerts people not to visit crowded places with cash and valuables, including jewelry and expensive phones. Keeping doors and windows closed, installing a lock with a siren and informing neighbors and local police before leaving home for a long time are also some of the ways to remain safe.

It also recommends people to use digital technology for monetary transactions, keep one-time password (OTP) private and not to post personal and travel details on social media.

Police have also alerted the public about the negative effects of gambling and cautioned against driving under the influence of alcohol and drugs.  

A person was injured when police opened fire at a group of alleged robbers at Jagdol in Gokarneshwor Municipality on Thursday.

Crime Investigation Office spokesperson Rabindra Regmi said that police have recovered a pistol and seven rounds of its bullets from the possession of robbers.

He said that police opened fire at the robbers after they tried to attack security personnel. Amar Ghalan (25) was injured in the police firing.

Regmi said that police reached the incident site acting on a tip-off.

Kidney problems are more common in Nepali people working in Malaysia and Gulf countries, according to a study conducted at two local levels in Dhanusha district.

A study carried out in Laxminiya Rural Municipality and Kshireshwornath Municipality in Dhanusha district under the leadership of the Bournemouth University in the United Kingdom shows that kidney problem is more common among the Nepali people who returned home from works in the Gulf countries and Malaysia than those living in Nepal. 

During the study, a comparison was made between those who have returned from jobs in five Gulf countries (Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Oman, UAE, Bahrain) and Malaysia, but have not completed one year after returning to Nepal and those who have not recently gone to the Gulf countries, said Dr Nirmal Aryal, a member of the research team.

According to him, the study was carried out in 718 people (all men), who have returned from employment in foreign countries and 720 people (370 men and 341 women) who have not recently gone for foreign jobs. When the ability of the 'glomerular filtration rate' considered the most important test to indicate the condition of kidneys was checked, there was a 5.8 percent decrease in the migrants and 3.6 percent in non-migrants, said Dr Aryal.

"Even among the non-migrants, more problems were found in former migrants than men and women who have never been abroad. Likewise, the average creatinine in the blood was also higher in the migrants than non-migrants. The test examines the amount of creatinine in the blood and calculates how much blood kidneys filter in one minute. A decreasing rate is considered to be deterioration in the functioning of the kidneys. This also indicates increasing kidney problems among immigrants," he said.

However, another examination for kidney problems shows that the amount of protein in the urine is higher in non-migrants than in migrants. The study concludes that since kidney problems were more common among non-migrant women, a separate study is required to find its cause.

Likewise, the study found that the migrants who returned home from the Gulf countries and Malaysia are at high risks of suffering from blood pressure, diabetes and overweight or obesity as compared to non-migrants. Migrants are at 38 percent risk to suffer from blood pressure as compared to non-migrants who are at 19.4 percent risk. In case of diabetes, the migrants are at 74 percent risk as opposed to non-migrants who are at 4.7 percent risk, and migrants have 674 percent risk of overweight or obesity than non-migrants who have 49 percent risk.

Dr Aryal said that those workers who work sitting at the same place for long hours, security guards and drivers and workers carrying out work under direct exposure to sun, outdoors and amidst dust and smoke are at high risk of renal diseases. Blood and urine samples were collected for this study and questionnaires were administered later.

Another member of the research team and Chief of the Provincial Public Health Laboratory, Janakpur, Dr Shrawan Kumar Mishra said about 90 percent of those who participated in the study were working in Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Malaysia, while more than two-thirds worked in construction and industry sectors.

Similarly, the participating migrants worked for 10.7 hours daily on an average and 30.9 percent of them did not stay on leave even for a day in a month on an average.

Likewise, 24.8 percent of the respondents said they had to do physically heavy work and almost half the respondents (44.4 percent) stated that they had to work in heat while approximately 97 percent of the migrant respondents said they had drinking water and toilet facilities at the workplace, Dr Mishra said.

"Not only the migrants, but the members of their families (specially their spouses) also had many health issues due to various sorts of stress Hypertension, diabetes and obesity is mostly seen among the migrants and therefore it is necessary to raise awareness about this in the destination countries itself. The Nepali Embassy and organizations working for the rights and welfare of the migrants should take special initiatives for this," he reiterated.

The study was conducted by Bournemouth University and Green Tara Nepal, an NGO, with financial support from The Colt Foundation. The Madhes Province Public Health Laboratory, the UN IOM and the University College London (UCL) had also assisted in the study.

It has been claimed that this study is the first kind of study conducted among the migrant Nepali workers and the non-migrants at the community level.

Dr Pramod Raj Regmi (Bournemouth University, UK) was the lead researcher and his team comprised of researchers Dr Nirmal Aryal, Prof Dr Edwin Van Teijlingen, Prof Dr Arun Sedhai, Dr Radheshyam KC and Dr Shrawan Kumar Mishra, according to Green Tara Nepal.