The Opposition parties on Tuesday criticised the Israeli ambassador’s response to Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra’s social media post about the “genocide” in Gaza, and demanded action against the diplomat.
On Tuesday, Vadra posted on social media platform X that Israel had “murdered over 60,000 people, 18,430 of whom were children” in the besieged Palestinian territory since the conflict between Tel Aviv and the Palestinian militant group Hamas started in October 2023.
“[Israel] has starved hundreds to death including many children and is threatening to starve millions,” the Wayanad MP said.
Vadra said that “enabling these crimes by silence and inaction” was a crime in itself. “It is shameful that the Indian government stands silent as Israel unleashes this devastation on the people of Palestine,” she added.
India’s longstanding position has been to support a two-state solution for establishing a sovereign, viable and independent state of Palestine within recognised and mutually agreed borders, living side by side with Israel in peace.
Responding to the Congress leader, Israeli ambassador Reuven Azar said that “what is shameful is [Vadra’s] deceit”, claiming that his country’s military had killed 25,000 members of Hamas.
“The terrible cost in human lives derives from Hamas’ heinous tactics of hiding behind civilians, their shooting of people trying to evacuate or receive assistance and their rocket fire,” Azar said on social media.
The Israeli diplomat added that Tel Aviv had facilitated two million tonnes of food into Gaza “while Hamas tries to sequestrate them, thereby creating hunger”.
The population of Gaza had grown 450% in the last 50 years, Azar claimed, adding that there was “no genocide there”. “Don’t buy Hamas numbers,” he said.
The Congress said that it condemns the words used by the Israeli ambassador in response to the “pain and anguish” expressed by Vadra.
“We do and find it totally unacceptable,” the party’s communication in charge Jairam Ramesh said.
Ramesh added: “It is too much to expect the Modi government, which has shown extreme moral cowardice when it comes to speaking out on Israel’s destruction of Gaza over the past 18-20 months, to take serious exception and objection to the ambassador’s response.”
Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) MP Priyanka Chaturvedi said that she hopes that the Ministry of External Affairs reprimands the Israeli ambassador.
The Rajya Sabha MP said that she had wanted to move a privilege motion against the Polish ambassador in 2022 for his social media post allegedly attacking her, but had decided not to raise it after a discussion with the external affairs minister.
“However this is emboldening them to speak to Indian parliamentarians in this tone and tenor while in our own country,” said Chaturvedi. “This is unacceptable.”
Israel’s military offensive in Gaza began in October 2023 after Hamas killed 1,200 persons during its incursion into southern Israel and took hostages. Israel has been carrying out unprecedented air and ground strikes on Gaza since then, leaving more than 61,000 persons dead.
Tel Aviv has also enforced a blockade on humanitarian aid, which the United Nations say has brought the population to the verge of famine.
Israel and Hamas have been holding ceasefire talks since July 6. Earlier efforts to reinstate a brief ceasefire that took effect in January had stalled due to major disagreements between the two sides.
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