No Indian Casualties in Israel-Palestine War: Envoy Naor Gilon Says Netanyahu, PM Modi Are In Touch

Israel’s ambassador to India Naor Gilon spoke exclusively to News18 in which underlined that Prime Minister Narendra Modi was one of the first few world leaders to show support to Israel after the Gaza attack on October 7. He underlined that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had updated PM Modi about the situation in the country, but said “it’s better to keep the details of the meeting because we don’t want to expose any of our intentions for the coming weeks”.

With the Indian government evacuating its nearly 18,000 citizens in war-torn Israel, ambassador Gilon said he does not have “full figures” but there are no Indian casualties reported so far.

Nearly 1,000 Israelis have been killed in the war, including children and women. Around 150 Israelis have been kidnapped, said the ambassador in the sudden weekend strike by Hamas. Close to 1,000 Hamas terrorists infiltrated more than 30 Jewish communities. So far, they have fired more than 5,000 rocket and missiles at Israel, he added. “They have threatened to execute the hostages so it’s going to be very complicated.”

He also said the only one way to stop terrorist organisations like Hamas is to eliminate them or “their ability to attack”. “We have to make sure that Hamas is unable to repeat this in the future.”

Despite Israel’s intelligence failure in intercepting the attack from Hamas, the country has been preparing ground and air forces for retaliation. “Hamas has started these atrocities but they will now become the victims. In the past, they used their own population as human shields,” the ambassador added.

With Arab countries backing Palestine in the ongoing war, Israel has accused Iran of being involved in destabilising the area. “Iran for a very long time is helping Hamas and supplying them technologies, knowledge and training. We can see what Hezbollah in the north, which is a proxy of Iran, is doing to hit the border,” Gilon explained.

Iran has been in a proxy war with Israel since 1979 when it adopted an ideology that combined radical Third-Worldism, anti-imperialism, Arab leftist radicalism and Muslim anti-semitism. At that time, many Arab governments rejected Israel as Jewish state. Over the years, they have normalised their relations with Israel. But Iran considers Israel as illegitimate state, which usurped Muslim and Arab land and thrown away Palestinians from their homeland.

Gilon also mentioned the game-changer Abraham Accords in transforming West Asia. “This is building a new future for the region. Countries who are against it, including Iran, are hoping what happened after Hamas’ terrible attack will lead to Saudi Arabia pulling away. These political Islamic extremists are dangerous for all the moderate regions in the Middle East. These are the enemies of stability and prosperity.”

The Abraham agreements were signed between Israel and four Arab countries – UAE, Morocco, Bahrain and Sudan – from September 2020 to January 2021. Although Saudi Arabia was not part of the treaty, relations have been growing lately with Israel.

The ambassador exhorted world leaders to “understand the need to fight terror to the fullest.”

US, the long-term ally of Israel, has sent American military ships to the eastern Mediterranean in strong message to Iran and its proxies to not interfere in the ongoing war with Hamas. At least 9 Americans have been killed in the Hamas’ assault.