Made in India weapons for Israel’s forever wars

A new Amnesty International investigation has blown the lid on the Indian government’s complicity in the Gaza genocide. The report titled ‘Made in India: The Supply of Weapons and Ammunition to Israel’ provides clear evidence. Between 7 October 2023 and 30 November 2025, India sent 2,596 shipments of weapons, ammunition and components to Israel — supplies that supported a war machine that has destroyed Gaza, deepened settler occupation of the West Bank and helped Israel expand its war into Lebanon, Yemen and Iran.

Amnesty lists the military goods supplied by Indian companies. They include machine gun parts, artillery shells, warheads for SkyStriker attack drones and military vehicle parts. The suppliers include private players as well as government-owned enterprises, which means the Modi government cannot even hide behind a claim that these sales were made by private firms only.

The Indian companies involved in these exports include private manufacturers such as Indo-MIM, Kalyani Strategic Systems and Adani Group-owned Alpha Elsec and PLR Systems, as well as government-owned companies like Munitions India and Advanced Weapons and Equipment India.

Munitions India reportedly sent 1,000 high-explosive shells to Elbit Systems. Advanced Weapons and Equipment India supplied 120 mortar launchers in February 2024. India Optel exported sensors to a firm jointly owned by Elbit Systems and Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, both state-owned defence manufacturers in Israel.

The Amnesty revelations destroy the Modi government’s cultivated ambiguity about the full extent of India’s participation in Israel’s war efforts. It cannot vote for a ceasefire and support a Palestinian state while helping arm another state making Palestinian life impossible.

In April 2024, India abstained from a UN Human Rights Council resolution calling for an arms embargo on Israel. The abstention looked like diplomatic caution at the time, but it’s clear now that India’s equidistant posture was a lie because India was supporting Israel’s war machine.

In January 2024, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) said Palestinians in Gaza had a plausible right to protection from acts of genocide. It ordered urgent steps to protect them. The Court issued further orders in March and May.

In April 2024, while hearing the Nicaragua vs Germany case, the Court reminded all states of their duties when sending weapons to countries at war. States must ensure that their weapons are not used to break the Genocide Convention or the Geneva Conventions.

In June 2024, UN experts warned that arms suppliers could share responsibility for serious crimes, possibly including genocide. Each warning has made it harder for India to deny knowledge. Every later shipment has increased its responsibility.

The legal issue is not whether investigators can match every Indian shell to a crater in Gaza. The lack of a company name on a weapon found under a destroyed home does not remove state culpability. The real question is simpler: did India knowingly support a military system when there was a clear and serious risk that this assistance would be used for major war crimes?

The Genocide Convention requires states to prevent genocide. Expressing regret later is not enough. The Geneva Conventions also require states to respect humanitarian law. India’s export rules require checks on the buyer, the planned use, foreign policy goals and treaty duties.

After Independence, support for Palestine was central to India’s foreign policy. India recognised the Palestine Liberation Organization as the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people in 1974. It recognised the State of Palestine in 1988. India’s record vis-à-vis Palestine may not be spotless but its diplomacy was shaped by opposition to colonial control and racial inequality.

Modi has abandoned that posture to build a fraternity of majoritarian states. The antecedents of Hindutva and Zionist ethno-nationalism may be different but they converge politically. Both treat land as sacred and exclusive. Both view Muslim citizenship with suspicion. Both celebrate military force. Both often portray dissent as treachery.

The Modi-Netanyahu relationship is, therefore, more than a pragmatic alliance. There is much in common between the dubious civilisational claims of the Zionist state and the social imaginary of the Sangh’s Hindu Rashtra project. Claims of racial superiority and a permanent sense of victimhood are common to both. So, the alliance goes beyond the practical considerations of weapons trade. On the practical side, India also offers Israel its manufacturing capacity and diplomatic protection.

India’s close ties with Israel carry a strategic cost. Israel is more isolated today than ever before. It is losing popular support even in the US, especially among young Americans, who have helplessly watched Israel conduct its genocidal project — starving an entire population, targeting its children and pregnant mothers, cutting off humanitarian aid, expanding its illegal settlements, all in flagrant violation of international law.

In poll after poll, they are serving notice to the Trump administration that it will pay for prioritising a ‘war of choice’ with Iran — a war it was dragged into by Netanyahu — over the everyday concerns of Americans.

Israel’s loss of standing and its isolation is manifest in the worldwide protests, in the calls for sanctions, in the piling legal cases, as also the growing support for Palestine. Modi is doing India’s reputation no favours by tying the country’s fortunes to Netanyahu’s Israel.

Not only has India lost its standing in the Global South, it cannot any more speak with any conviction about freedom from colonial rule or demand fairness in global institutions — not while it is helping Israel erase Palestine from the map. It cannot defend sovereignty and invoke international law only when convenient. Smaller states in Asia and Africa are reading this right. They know what India’s pursuit of ‘strategic autonomy’ in foreign relations really means.

Can India reverse the damage it has done to its global stature?

That will depend on whether the current government has the will and wherewithal to acknowledge the slide. Not if Modi continues to thump his chest about India’s great bond with Israel. Not if his government continues to trade weapons and surveillance tools with an international pariah state.

It is near-impossible to even imagine the possibility that his government will change course and find ways to pull out of all direct and indirect transfers of weapons, ammunition, technology and technical support to and from Israel; that existing permits will be suspended and independently reviewed; that Parliament will receive full details of approvals, exporters, buyers, prices and checks after delivery; that the companies currently engaged in this unconscionable trade will weigh the human rights consequences of their business.

These are not real possibilities, and nothing less will do.

Ashok Swain is a professor of peace and conflict research at Uppsala University, Sweden. More by the author here