{"id":16273,"date":"2026-02-25T07:22:46","date_gmt":"2026-02-25T07:22:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/modi-flies-to-israel-to-deepen-defence-and-trade-ties-stirring-criticism-at-home\/"},"modified":"2026-02-25T07:22:46","modified_gmt":"2026-02-25T07:22:46","slug":"modi-flies-to-israel-to-deepen-defence-and-trade-ties-stirring-criticism-at-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/modi-flies-to-israel-to-deepen-defence-and-trade-ties-stirring-criticism-at-home\/","title":{"rendered":"Modi flies to Israel to deepen defence and trade ties, stirring criticism at home"},"content":{"rendered":"
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NEW DELHI, Feb 25 — India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi flew to Israel on Wednesday for a two-day visit to deepen ties with a key trade and defence partner, stirring criticism at home.<\/p>\n

“Our nations share a robust and multifaceted strategic partnership,” Modi said in a departure statement, saying he will meet his counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu and address the Knesset, Israel’s parliament.<\/p>\n

“Ties have significantly strengthened in the last few years.”<\/p>\n

New Delhi has steadily expanded cooperation with Israel across the defence, agriculture, technology and cybersecurity sectors while balancing diplomatic interests in the Middle East.<\/p>\n

Talks opened in New Delhi on Monday for an India-Israel Free Trade Agreement (FTA), India’s government said in a statement, noting that total merchandise trade was US$3.62 billion in 2024-2025.<\/p>\n

Modi said he would hold talks with Netanyahu to “discuss ways to strengthen cooperation”, as well as meet Israeli President Isaac Herzog.<\/p>\n

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Full diplomatic relations between the two countries were established in 1992. Ties deepened after Hindu-nationalist leader Modi took office in 2014.<\/p>\n

Modi visited Israel as prime minister in 2017, before Netanyahu made a reciprocal visit to India the following year.<\/p>\n

Both right-wing leaders have called each other a “friend”.<\/p>\n

In September 2023, grand plans were unveiled in New Delhi for an India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor — to link railways, ports, electricity, data networks and pipelines, including through Saudi Arabia and Israel.<\/p>\n

Those plans were stalled by Hamas’s October 7 deadly attack on Israel, which responded with a devastating war in the Gaza Strip.<\/p>\n

Senior Congress party figure Priyanka Gandhi — sister of opposition leader Rahul — posted on social media on Wednesday that she hoped Modi would mention the killing of “thousands of innocent men, women and children in Gaza” when he addresses Israel’s parliament.<\/p>\n

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India, the world’s most populous nation with 1.4 billion people, is majority Hindu, but an estimated 220 million Indians are Muslim.<\/p>\n

One of India’s largest conglomerates, Adani Group, operates the Mediterranean port of Haifa, while Israeli military drone technology played a pivotal role during India’s May 2025 clash with Pakistan.<\/p>\n

At the same time, India maintains strong relations with Gulf nations and Tehran, including developing Iran’s Chabahar port — a trade gateway to Afghanistan, where New Delhi has built a relationship with Taliban authorities. — AFP<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Modi flies to Israel to deepen defence and trade ties, stirring criticism at home<\/sub><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NEW DELHI, Feb 25 — India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi flew to Israel on Wednesday for a two-day visit to deepen ties with a key trade and defence partner, stirring criticism at home. “Our nations share a robust and multifaceted strategic partnership,” Modi said in a departure statement, saying he will meet his counterpart Benjamin…<\/p>\n

Read More “Modi flies to Israel to deepen defence and trade ties, stirring criticism at home”<\/span> »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16274,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16273","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16273"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16273\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16274"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}