Exclusive: 'Will continue to target Hezbollah's capabilities,' says Israel's ambassador to India

Israel's new Ambassador to India Reuven Azar has said that his country will continue to target Hezbollah's capabilities even as he called for implementation of United Nations Security Council resolution 1701. His comments come even as the Israel-Lebanon situation continues to remain tense.

Speaking to our diplomatic correspondent Sidhant Sibal, Ambassador Azar said, "you've seen some of these efforts by Israel, and this will incrementally grow as long as Hezbollah refuses to implement 1701. So what we are seeing in the last 24 hours is that we are targeting Hezbollah capabilities inside villages, in all these places which they illegally are embedding weapon systems in order to attack Israeli citizens".

UN Security Council Resolution 1701 was adopted on August 11, 2006 calls for the disarmament of all armed groups in Lebanon, which includes Hezbollah, so that there would be no weapons or authority other than that of the Lebanese government.

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The ambassador extensively spoke on his country's ties with India and invited Indian companies to help in building Israeli infrastructure. He said, "Now we are going to invest $35 billion in the next five years, and we want to invite Indian companies to participate in international tenders in Israel because we lack the capabilities that India has when it comes to building infrastructure". India and Israel have been cooperating in several areas, including agriculture, innovation, and food security.

Several Indian workers are also now travelling to the West Asian country, with the Israeli ambassador giving assurances on safety. He said, "So workers are working in places that are not in danger, and they just work in places where Israelis work as well. So I think in that regard, we are pretty safe." Notably, this isthefirst TV interview of the new Israeli Ambassador:

WION: How do you see India-Israel ties?

Reuven Azar: The relationship between India and Israel is an amazing relationship. We have a lot of things in common. We are two ancient peoples, having young countries, and we are building our economies, building our infrastructure. We both have serious security threats and defence challenges, and we live in a problematic environment, and we have linked ourselves together for quite some decades now, since we started our cooperation in the defence sector, and today, beyond that sector, we have a great partnership in food security, agriculture, and water. Israel has about 32 centres of excellence in agriculture, which we are partnering with the Indian government to introduce technologies. Our companies, big irrigation companies, are here. The third pillar is innovation. We have a lot of Israeli startups and technology companies working with the technology hubs here in India, in Bangalore, Mumbai, in Delhi and other places, and the fourth pillar that we are starting to build now is in the infrastructure sector. Israel is also building its own infrastructure.Now we are going to invest $35 billion in the next five years, and we want to invite Indian companies to participate in international tenders in Israel, because we lack the capabilities that India has when it comes to building infrastructure. India has already built 1000 kilometresof Metro for example; we don't have any metro. We are building it now. So we would like to have Indian companies coming.And what really is the common denominator on all these four pillars I've talked about is supply chains and sourcing. India is becoming a manufacturing hub in the world, and many companies in Israel have started, or want to start operations in India and commercialization of technology and of startups and in production. So we are seeing these companies coming to India all the time. In the first weeks of my tenure here, I have already had meetings with such companies and, of course, with Indian players that want to have a part in that process.

WION: So several areas and domains of cooperation, but few things stand out. One is agriculture. I believe Israel is the only embassy in Delhi which has a diplomat dedicated to water cooperation. Other areas include startup semiconductors and artificial intelligence. If you can perhaps give more details as to where you are looking at the cooperation going forward?

Reuven Azar: Well, first of all, we have to make sure that the centres of excellence are working and actually are introducing the right technology. So, we have experts that are going from one centre to another in order to verify that, then we have cooperation with our private sector companies in order to make sure that they have access, and they engage with the Indian partners. In addition to that, as a result of the agreement between Prime Minister Modi and Prime Minister Netanyahu, back in 2018 we have a special water envoy, because water is becoming the main challenge for the future as a result of this climate challenge situation that we have. We have two issues. One is the lack of water, and the second is what to do with the sewage water. Because this, you know, the urbanisation, the massive urbanisation, is creating a lot of water issues. As people increase their level of life, they use more water, and then there is a danger that these waters will contaminate the rivers, will deplete nature. So Israel is successfully introducing technologies to purify the water, to recycle it, and to use it for agriculture again. So we in Israel grow 70 per cent of our crops with recycled water, and we recycle 95 per cent of our sewage. So these are things that are already proven, and now we are working with governments, with states, with cities, with water companies in order to prevent leakage, to put sensors to control, to know what's happening with the water. There are different solutions that might fit different places, not necessarily our solutions are fit for every place. But since we have this cooperation, we have an amazing upgrade in the water cooperation that is going to help us also with climate change challenges. On innovation, we have different people in our embassy, but also consulates in Mumbai and Bangalore that are first of all, encouraging Israelis to participate in events in India, but also are doing matchmaking between technological companies in India and Israel, both for the benefit of joint research through a mutual research fund that we have established of $4 million per year on its side, whether it be on commercialization of startups, because many startups in Israel, they want to grow to be big companies, but it's not worth it to manufacture in Israel. India has a relative advantage in that it's not just manufacturing it's the commercialization of the product. So there are companies that are specialising in that, so we are working with the Investment Authority and with other players in order to make that happen. So at the end of the day, this takes a lot of our time, and we are sure that the impact of that is going to be huge.

WION: Indian workers are something that we have seen conversation happening. In fact, practical developments have happened. The first lot of Indian workers have gone to Israel. So what numbers are we looking at when it comes to Indian workers traveling to Israel in the coming few months?

Reuven Azar: The potential is huge. We are currently having about 9000 to 10,000 but it's just the beginning. We are basically going to be three ways in which we workers can come to Israel. Two were already established, either through a governmental agreement or through the private sector. Butif Indian companies start to develop infrastructure projects in Israel, then they will be able to bring their own teams to work in Israel in order to implement these projects. So there is a challenge at the beginning, because we, you know, we have to make sure that the right kind of workers meet the needs of the right kind of employers. But at the end of the day, I think this will only grow and we will perfect the system as we go.

WION: We saw some stories as well, in terms of the Indian workers facing problems and skill issues as well, skill mismatch. What do you have to see?

Reuven Azar: Well, it'sbasically the job of the private sector companies to test the workers before they arrive. So if they don't do the proper job and they don't do the testing before the workers come, then they get surprised when the people come, and suddenly they find out they're not skilled enough. So first of all, they have to improve their testing capabilities. Second, they can also train the workers when they come. So the government tried to help. If we tackle the situation in which workers don't fit a certain field, then they divert them to another field. But we prefer to be in a situation where we have a meeting of expectations, in which the employers know exactly what they want and they need, and the workers also know what's going to happen with them. So we managed to avoid any difficulties.

WION: But on the safety issue, there have been conversations. Are Indian workers safe in Israel?

Reuven Azar: Of course. And you know, we were very, very keen, following also the request of the Indian government to put a distance between workers and dangerous places as a result of the current conflict happening in Israel. Soworkers are working in places that are not in danger, and they just work in places where Israelis work as well. So I think in that regard, we are pretty safe.

WION: So now coming to India's stance on the ongoing conflict, how do you see India's stance? India was among the first countries to condemn the terror attack by Hamas, but since then, India has also called for respecting the humanitarian law, the international law. What do you have to say on India's position?

Reuven Azar: Well, it's natural the countries will expect humanitarian law to be respected. We are a democracy and we respect international humanitarian law.I think that the challenge has been for alldemocracies when terrorists abuse the norms that we have and take advantage of it in order to try to create immunity for their operatives, and we, unfortunately are seeing it very, vastly used in the Gaza street, but also in Lebanon now, you probably saw how Hamas used human shields, how they fire rockets, fire rockets from within civilian population, against in an indiscriminate way, against civilian population, or how they used ambulances to transport terrorists, or how they took advantage of hospitals and actually had terrorists working from within hospitals or from schools. So they have been actually, you know, working against any rule in the book, you know, trying to create a situation in which people think that Israel is working against international humanitarian law. What they are forgetting is that, according to international humanitarian law, if you use a humanitarian facility or a facility that is protected by international law, you abuse it. You use it to operate from there and to attack from there, then that place loses its immunity. So that's why it has become controversial, because they're abusing a respect for international humanitarian law, and this is exactly what's happening in Lebanon now as well. The entire South of Lebanon is full of missiles that are embedded into civilians homes, and that's why the IDF (Israel Defense Forces)has been calling in the last few days the civilians that live in villages in the South of Lebanon to evacuate, to distance themselves from these houses in which they live that have a room with missiles, because it's very dangerous for them. At the end of the day, Israel will have to defend itself and hit those missiles. So we don't want civilians to be in harm's way. We're calling them to evacuate, to get away.

WION: Would you be keen that India be invited and have conversation with the 2 sides? Send out a message to the other side?

Reuven Azar: Well, sending messages is always a good thing, but it's up to India to decide whether it wants to be involved or not. I think that at the end of the day, we have to concentrate on reaching our goals and getting support from the parties that actually are interested in stability and prosperity. And I think that India is interested in stability and prosperity, and it has been very clear that it doesn't support indiscriminate terrorist acts against Israel or any other party. So in order to stabilise the region, we have to defeat the terrorists, and we have to create a situation in which the people that actually are more moderate and pragmatic will have a chance to have a role, and as long as the terrorists have a stronger hand in the Palestinian society, the leadership that wants to, or would like, maybe to, negotiate with Israel are intimidating, and they won't go forward and negotiate in good faith with state of Israel. And that's why we have a responsibility here. All the countries in the world have a responsibility to defeat radicalism, if we really want to see a good outcome.

WION: There are reports and saying reports, because there is no confirmation regarding this, that Indian weapons are reaching Israel, and Israel is using Indian weapons in Gaza. Is it true?

Reuven Azar: Well, look, I cannot comment on shipments because I don't have information. Israel has its own defence industry, and it's cooperating in defence industry with many countries, including with India. So I don't know to what extent things are either coming or going, but at the end of the day, Israel buys mainly American systems, and it produces most of most of its systems itself.

WION: Most likely Indian weapons aren't used or used. I mean, what's your sense like?

Reuven Azar: Well, I, as I said, I'm not aware of specific shipments of weapons that I can talk about at this point.

WION : India's position at the UN we have seen India abstaining at many resolutions which are openly pro-Palestinian. How do you see that?

Reuven Azar: Well, I think that the international arena, and especially the UN system, is very problematic because it is rigged by a majority of countries that are not necessarily interested in advancing goals that are important, both for us and for India, goals like democracy, respect of human rights. And instead of that, are using their majority power, especially Muslim countries have overwhelming presence in the UN to appoint people that are biased and write biased reports, or to make to initiate resolutions like the resolution that was approved in the UN General Assembly last week that is calling to ban Israel, to, you know, to do all kinds of things to punish Israel, despite the fact that Israel is defending itself. So I think that we are all suffering from that. But I think Israel is suffering the most because when you look at the UN system, you see that it is full of activity against Israel in a way that is completely distorted. So yes, we have a challenge, and we are happy that some of the countries are actually not lining up with these bad initiatives, andwe are grateful that India didn't support the UNGA resolution that was approved last week.

WION: Where is the situation in Gaza heading and what does Israel plan to do?

Reuven Azar: So first of all, when you look at the status or the result of our operation, you can see that we have managed to bring back about 150 hostages out of the 250. We still have 100 hostages that we have to bring back by trying to make a deal to bring them back, or continue doing operations to bring them back. It's a combination of both. But above that, what we have done is that we have completely destroyed the military capability of Hamas in terms of their threats against Israel itself, so they no longer have thousands of weapons and missiles, they had before the war. They cannot fire against Israel indiscriminately, as they were doing before. We destroyed their capabilities, their stockpiles, their factories. We destroyed many of their command-and-control centres, including their intelligence. We have basically destroyed the probability to operate as an army. Used to have several regiments that we destroyed, so they can still do some terrorist attacks, some attacks against our forces. And they are unfortunately still controlling humanitarian assistance. And Israel will have to decide in the coming weeks whether it's going to allow that to continue, because at the end of the day, as long as the Palestinians in Gaza continue to fear Hamas being terrorised by Hamas it is going to be very difficult to bring any other alternative. So nobody in the world, neither from the Palestinian Authority, or from the Arab world or international they are not going to come to the Gaza strip as long as Hamas is there, so we will have to continue our operation until Hamas is completely defeated militarily, and we can, together with our partners and friends, create a brighter future for Gaza. It's free from the Hamas terrorist threat.

WION: But there is another situation that is escalating very fast. That's the Lebanon situation. Where do you see the situation going forward now?

Reuven Azar: Well, this situation has been dragging on for some time because, as you remember, Hezbollah unprovoked, unprovokedly attacked Israel on the eighth of October. Okay, so this unprovoked attack was met with Israeli retaliation. However, we, you know, we waited with the retaliation because we were concentrated in Gaza Strip. The Israeli Defense Forces were big enough in order to deal with both threats simultaneously and for different reasons, the government and the IDF decided to have a gradual approach. So now we are seeing the focus shifting towards Lebanon because we want to bring our citizens back home. We have evacuated between 60 and 70,000 citizens from the immediate area of the border because they were being attacked directly with anti-tank missiles and other rockets by Hezbollah. So we want to change that. And our aim, our declared aim, of the Government of Israel is to implement UN Security Council resolution 1701, which Hezbollah had been breaching and refused to implement. So what is expected is for all the Hezbollah forces to withdraw north, so we can have stability in the border. Hezbollah is refusing to do that, and Israel has declared that if Hezbollah is not willing to do that, we are going to increase our attacks. So you've seen some of these efforts by Israel, and this will incrementally grow as long as Hezbollah refuses to implement 1701. So what we are seeing in the last 24 hours is that we are targeting Hezbollah capabilities inside villages, in all these places which they illegally are embedding weapon systems in order to attack Israeli citizens. We have seen, unfortunately, many so far since 8th October, we've seen more than 8300 missiles, hundreds of drones, hundreds of anti-tank missiles being fired from Lebanon. We are not going to tolerate that. So what is expected to happen is that we are going to increase our attacks against Hezbollah.

WION: Israel behind the pager attacks in Lebanon, as is being reported by various outlets.

Reuven Azar: Well, we've seen that this happened. We don't have anything to say about it. At the end of the day, when terrorists, you know, operate, they are not immune. So whoever did that, I think, wanted to send a clear message to the terrorists. And actually, what is even more substantial is that last week, at the end of last week, we managed to hit the main commanders while they were planning to attack Israel, to invade Israel. So if Hezbollah thinks that they will be able to continue attacking Israel, and Israel will just stay put, they have to prepare for a different scenario. And the government has made it very clear that we have the right to defend ourselves, and we will not continue sustaining such situations. We'll have to solve it because we want to bring all our citizens back. They deserve to be back in their homes.

WION: So going to the wider region, the biggest worry for Israel has always been Iran. Now, do you fear an attack by Iran anytime soon? And also linking a short question with this is, how do you see India's role?

Reuven Azar: Well, first of all, we have to remember that Iran is the head, is the head of the Octopus. All this instability that has been created in the last few years, especially since the Arab state system collapsed in the Arab Spring, this vacuum created a huge influx of weapons, training, money that is coming from Iran to all these proxies in Lebanon, in Syria, in Iraq, in Yemen, in the Palestinian territories and they are doing that because they want to expand the Iranian Islamic revolution. They have an agenda of becoming hegemonic in the region. They want to defeat Sunni Islam and Israel is just another obstacle in the way. They are against the United States. They are against democracy and western values. So Iran is a very dangerous entity right now, and we wish for a day in which Iran will be free, which the people of Iran that are being also oppressed by this terrible radical regime, will also be free. We've seen, you know, how they are hanging opponents of the regime, how they are, you know, harassing women. It's terrible. And you know, many countries have told us in the past that, you know it's important to have this dialogue with Iran, because if you have a dialogue with Iran, you'll be able to influence them. Many European countries have been telling us this for decades. It didn't, it didn't change anything. At the end of the day, the only thing that is going to change Iran behaviour, and we've seen that in the past, is that if pressure is being put in Iran, if countries stop cooperating with Iran, if countries stop being friendly to Iran, because if they do that, Iran will continue working against them. Will continue to proliferate their weapons and export these technologies to other rogue elements. Look at what's happening in Europe now, where you see Iranian attack drones and missiles being fired and landing in Ukraine. So this is very dangerous. At the end of the day, these people are going to proliferate these technologies also to other places, and you might find it also near theatres that are closer to your home. So our experience tells us that just smiling to Iran doesn't makes any difference.

WION: So moving on to the connectivity initiatives and conversations on I2U2 and alsoIndia Middle East Europe corridor. Do you think that this corridor will take time because of the ongoing situation in West Asia?

Reuven Azar: Well, we have to remember that at the end of the day, when you want to create economic stability, it has to lean on pillars of security, stability and political stability. And then you can create economic stability and economic prosperity. When you have a region that is being attacked by aggressors that want to destroy it. It's going to be very difficult to build such a capability but we have proven in the past, and we will prove it in the future again, that when we defeat the radicals, we can create this corridor of stability in the region, because we have partners that are interested in that, Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain and other countries that want to be part of this corridor of prosperity. And you have Europe and India and other countries in Asia that are also interested in that. And the proof that we are having even during this war, is that we have united under the American umbrella to defend the skies of the Middle East against these atrocious attacks that are coming from Iran. So you saw it on the 13th of April when Iran launched the most massive attack of drones and missiles in history against another country, that we managed to foil it because we already have cooperation in the Middle East, military cooperation between countries in the region. So I am sure once we defeat Hamas and Hezbollah and we restore stability in our region, we will be able to have also the economic part built on the security and the political point, we will be able to expand the Abraham accords and the interests of the countries in the region as a result of this war only increased, not decreased. But we have one duty. We have, first of all, to defeat those who want to harm stability and prosperity, because these are the enemies of peace, and these are also the enemies of Israel and India and many other countries in the world.

WION: How do you see Al Jazeera's role in terms of this ongoing conflict?

Reuven Azar: Well, if you make a quick check, you will say, you will see that many countries in the region have banned Al Jazeera.And you know, why? Can you imagine why they are doing that? Because Al Jazeera is a promoter of a radical Muslim Brotherhood agenda in the Middle East. Because Al Jazeera is against the values that we want to promote, democracy of human rights.They're just pretending that they are defending human rights, but what they are really doing is promoting radicalism, promoting rejectionism. They are a very dangerous entity, and unfortunately, they are being supported by the Qatari government that is playing a double game. On the one hand, it enjoys the protection of the West, but on the other hand, they are promoting this radical agenda in order to defend themselves from the radicals, and this game must stop. So many countries have already reached that conclusion. Israel, you know, it took us too long, because, again, you know, people are using and abusing our norms. We support freedom of speech, but freedom of speech has a limit when somebody promotes violence and terrorism, and this is exactly what Jazeera is doing. And therefore they have ceased to be a legitimate player, and they have to be banned, not only from many Arab countries, they're already banned, but also from Israel.

WION: So the last question to you is, last year, the Greek prime minister suggested inclusion of India in a trilateral which includes Israel, Cyprus and Greece. I know the situation since then has gone really bad, but any plans, what is Israel's view on inclusion of India and this trilateral where India has good relationships with all the three countries?

Reuven Azar: Look, at the end of the day, political frameworks are very important. The question is, what kind of content to put inside that framework. So we have in this trilateral framework we had with Greece and Cyprus. We were doing a lot of meetings for a long time, but it became strategic only when we managed to put content. So today, we are connecting Cyprus and Greece with the electrical cable. We are having, you know, cooperation in flights and transportation, in the defence industry, Israel is building the military aviation school of Greece. We have bonds that are worth billions of dollars in trade, in tourism, everything. This is what we are doing with India as well. There might be a situation in the future in which, because of the fact that India has commercial and strategic interest in the eastern Mediterranean, we will find ways of creating joint projects between the four of us. It can be in communication cables, it can be in logistics, it can be in energy corridors, many things. So it's up to the governments to prioritise, and it's up to the private sector to implement, and we are going to be more than happy to do that together.