In recent years, the relationship between India and Israel has transformed from a distant diplomatic connection to a robust partnership marked by significant collaboration in trade, defense, and technology. Once limited by political complexities, this evolving bond reflects shared interests in security, innovation, and regional stability, signaling a new era of cooperation.
Earlier this month, a delegation of leaders from Indian society traveled to Israel to visit important sites and speak to Israeli counterparts, proving that ties between the two nations extend to the personal level as well. The visit was organized by Sharaka, a nonprofit organization that aims to reshape the Middle East according to the values of dialogue and cooperation.
Devang Bhatt, head of the major Indian news channel GTPL, told The Media Line he was excited when a representative from Sharaka asked him to join the delegation because he recognized the importance of educating younger Indians about the reality in Israel. After this visit, his first to Israel, he’s now planning on devoting one show a month on his channel to the situation in Israel.
Many of the delegation members whom The Media Line spoke with described significant parallels between the situations in Israel and in India. For Lt. Gen. Satish Dua, who served in the Indian army for nearly four decades, a pin on his uniform calls to mind those similarities. The pin is shaped like the leaf of a chinar tree, a common species in India’s conflict-ridden Jammu and Kashmir region.
“You know, Jammu and Kashmir, we have a situation nowadays with Pakistan, and we’re dealing with terrorists, as are you,” Dua said. “So I was the core commander there. That means all the army, all the paramilitary forces there in Kashmir Valley. And the emblem that the formation, the core headquarters, the whole core that is adopted there is a chinar leaf. So that’s why I wear it here proudly.”
He told The Media Line that both Israel and India are dealing with “difficult neighbors”—in India’s case, Pakistan, which has been a significant source of terrorism.
India admires the way Israel has handled both enemy states and nonstate proxy groups, Dua said. “There’s a lot to learn from the Israel Defense Forces for our forces. And I’m sure there are some lessons that your forces can also take away from our forces, because we also have been in the same, ever since our independence, we’ve had some kind of insurgency or the other,” he said.
The Shakara trip was the first visit to Israel for many of the participants, including Lt. Gen. Rajendra Ramrao Nimbhorkar. But as a longtime officer in the Indian military, Nimbhorkar was no stranger to Israel’s military history.
“This being a very militarily dependent country, we in the Indian army have studied various wars and campaigns which the Israeli army has fought,” he told The Media Line.
He said he recognized “a lot of similarities between India and Israel,” especially in regard to Jammu and Kashmir, where he served for 17 years.
Learning about Israel’s military history is actually part of the military curriculum for India, Dua said. For that reason, “there is a great deal of awareness, especially amongst the Indian army officers, about what has been the military history of Israel,” he said.
Israeli-Indian military cooperation
One of the highlights of Dua’s trip was visiting the border with Gaza. “It was very nice to learn about the Gaza border, because we have similarities in the India-Pakistan border, because the way the terrain is, though our terrain is much higher mountainous terrain, but the similarities of a porous border and terrorists getting across using the sensors,” he said. “We actually use sensors that we actually procured from Israel. We also use the same in our border fencing.”
Those are just a few examples of military cooperation between Israel and India. The Drishti-10 Starliner used by the Indian military is a variant of an Israeli drone.
Bhatt noted that his own news company relies on Israeli systems. “In each corner of the world, they have to get support from Israel. Even I’m talking about my own company,” he said. “My company has 10.5 million subscribers and the security system we have got from Israel only.”
Dua said that India relies on Israeli weapons to fill any “critical voids.” As far back as three decades ago, when he was serving as colonel on the border with Pakistan, the first handheld thermal imagers the military had were sourced from Israel, Dua said.
“The best measure of our support and trust in each other is the fact that there have been a couple of times when we needed something very critically, very urgently because of the operational situation. In fact, the conflict was ongoing, and Israel came to our help,” he said. “You know, sometimes it takes, there are long gestation periods to actually get defense equipment and weapons and ammunition. But when we needed it, we got it in real quick time.”
India and Israel’s militaries also carry out regular joint exercises and delegations to each other’s countries, Dua added. “Both our armies, that is India and Israeli army or armed forces, are involved in combating the same scourge. So there is again a lot of give and take,” he said.
“I’m sure that India and Israel will only enhance their cooperation in the new emerging fields, especially in the world of cyber and space,” Dua continued. “Here, Israel has a lot of strengths. India also has some strengths in the software skills, but in the cyber world, the Israeli capabilities are fairly unmatched, and we look forward to cooperating in that.”
The members of the delegation all expressed that the Indian people have a positive view of Israel. “Forget about Indian politicians, forget about Indian media, but once we are on the ground, Indians are in favor of Israel,” Bhatt said.
Snehesh Alex Philip, a journalist at ThePrint, India’s largest and fastest growing digital news agency, told The Media Line that one challenge in terms of communicating about Israel is that young Indian news consumers don’t have patience for involved stories. “It’s like a quick two-minute noodles, right? They want everything in, in just a matter of two minutes,” he said.
Philip described the Indian population as supportive of Israel overall. “As far as the whole issue of Israel, Hamas, and this region is concerned, I think back in India, there’s a huge support as far as Israel is concerned,” he said.
Neha Khanna, deputy editor and senior anchor with India’s TV9 network, said that Indians’ experience with terrorism makes the population sympathetic to Israelis’ struggles. “We had horrific attacks in Mumbai in 2008, for instance, perhaps one of the worst attacks, if not the worst, on Indian soil,” she told The Media Line. “And what happened in Israel on October 7 was something like that.”
But alongside that sympathy is a sense that the war needs to come to an end, Khanna said. “I think a lot of people believed that the war had gone on for too long and just too many people had died,” she said. “A lot of Palestinians have suffered; too many lives have been lost in Gaza. So, you know, one really hopes that calm heads can prevail and that a lasting peace can be found.”
“I have covered this war extensively and brought news about it to my Indian viewers, not just in India, but also abroad. And I have, in fact, had multiple Israeli guests on my shows to talk about various dimensions of the war,” she said. “And I think we can all agree that it’s been a very challenging situation for Israel, for the Palestinians, and for the Middle East and indeed the entire world, because everybody just kept wondering if this was going to, in fact, degenerate into some sort of a regional conflagration. I’m glad it hasn’t got to that point, and I certainly hope that the ceasefire holds. But I can tell you that pretty much like everyone else, the people of India are watching this situation very closely with a lot of interest.”
She noted that India supports a two-state solution, which raises questions about President Donald Trump’s plans to relocate Gazans and support Israeli presence in the West Bank, both of which seem to preclude a two-state solution. “Indians, as much as anyone else, want to see a return of peace and normalcy in the region. And at the end of the day, if the people of India believe that we need to see peaceful coexistence and cohabitation between the two peoples, then I guess what is being suggested by President Trump is not really likely to find many supporters, could in fact cause alarm,” she said.
Philip, too, highlighted the importance of achieving a two-state solution. “Without a two-state solution, I don’t see any long-lasting peace that is going to be there. No matter how much you can militarily take over a region, there has to be a conflict resolution. It can’t be a prolonging of conflict,” he said.
He did praise President Trump for his actions so far, noting that the president applied pressure to both Hamas and to Israel to reach a deal. “Had Trump not won the elections, had Trump not come in, I don’t think the ceasefire would have really worked out,” he said.
Philip also noted the importance of the Abraham Accords, normalization agreements between Israel and four Arab nations signed during President Trump’s first term. But he said that Israel’s increasingly normalized place in the Middle East was likely one of the catalysts for the October 7 attacks.
Like Khanna, Philip described the conflict between Israel and Hamas as a war fought for a just cause but one that has gone on too long. “What Hamas did was nothing but a pure form of terrorism. Israel had every right to hit back at Hamas, which it did, but the war prolonged too long,” he said. “There were a lot of civilian casualties that came up. There was the whole question of the hostages that were there.”
Dua described the ongoing hostage crisis as a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” situation of a kind that India is unfortunately familiar with.
“We’ve had an aircraft that was hijacked in 1999, taken to Kandahar in Afghanistan, and we were told to release a few dreaded terrorists languishing in our jails, in our prisons,” Dua said. “One of them, Masood Azhar, eventually formed the Jaish-e-Mohammed, whose signature tactics is suicide squads, and they’ve started perfecting that technology, and they’ve harmed not only India, even Pakistan and other places. So what I’m trying to say is that it’s a tough call that Israel has had to make.”
He said that the countries of the world ought to learn from each other about terrorist negotiations, but not necessarily establish hard and fast rules for such negotiation that all will abide by. “If you formulate a few bigger countries, US, India, Israel, and other countries who are affected by terrorism, we sit down and formulate some rules. How can we hold a signatory to that? Because the circumstances in which that country will be called upon to negotiate with a particular situation will be different,” he said. “To my mind, I don’t think it’s going to be an easy thing. A better way would be to learn from each other’s experiences, to form their own national policies, and then act on it.”
Nimbhorkar commended Israel for its response to the October 7 attacks. “Whatever the solution Israel has done, I think is the correct solution,” he said, explaining that Hamas will now think twice about committing more terror attacks.
He called on the international community to more harshly condemn Hamas and to support Israel’s response.
Relocating Gazans to neighboring countries, as President Trump has proposed, “is desirable, but I think it’s not practical,” Nimbhorkar said, noting that doing such a thing might require a ground invasion into Egypt.
“Personally, I feel Israel should not let go the control of the Gaza Strip,” he said. “Because the moment you let it go, then again you come back to square one. And therefore, after that, the rest of the thing, as you say, giving a soft touch, subsequently can be done. First, you have to have an iron hand and then have a soft touch.”
That duality was also present in the advice Bhatt had to offer to Israel. He said he would like Israelis to internalize the Hindu concept of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam, which means “the world is one family.” “Even Narendra Modi, prime minister, whenever he goes to any country, he delivers the same message, Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam,” Bhatt explained
But that message must be taken together with another piece of Indian wisdom. “There is a god, Krishna. He always says, whenever an enemy is there, then please use your weapon,” Bhatt said.