India briefs Israel about border row with China, decides to further strengthen bilateral military ties

NEW DELHI: India on Friday briefed Israel, which is a major supplier of missiles, precision-guided munitions, drones and radars to the Indian armed forces, on the ongoing military confrontation with China along the Line of Actual Control.
The two countries also decided to further strengthen their already expansive military ties during the telephonic conversation between defence minister Rajnath Singh and his Israeli counterpart Lt-General Benjamin Gantz.
"Both the ministers expressed satisfaction at the progress of strategic cooperation between the two countries and discussed possibilities for further strengthening defence engagements," said an official MoD statement.
The talks come at a time when India is making emergency arms purchases from countries like the US, France, Russia and Israel to bolster its operational military readiness against China.
The 13-lakh strong Army, for instance, is finalizing several acquisition proposals that range from "Spike Firefly loitering munitions" and additional "Spike" anti-tank guided missiles and launchers from Israel to small hand-launched Raven drones and 72,000 more SiG Sauer assault rifles from the US, as was reported by TOI earlier.
There are also bigger procurement proposals in the pipeline, which will cost much beyond the Rs 300 crore emergency procurement powers delegated to the armed forces by the government recently. From Israel, they include additional Israeli "Heron" surveillance as well as missile-armed unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).
Israel, incidentally, had rushed emergency weapon supplies to India during the 1999 Kargil conflict with Pakistan. Since then, with annual sales worth over $1 billion, Israel figures among the top four arms suppliers to India in addition to Russia, the US and France.
While inviting Lt-Gen Gantz to visit India at the earliest, Rajnath Singh also called for greater participation of Israeli defence companies under the new liberalized FDI regime in Indian defence manufacturing.
There are already three major ongoing DRDO-Israeli Aerospace Industries projects to manufacture the next-generation Barak surface-to-air missile systems for the IAF (initial cost was Rs 10,076 crore), Navy (Rs 2,606 crore) and Army (Rs 16,830 crore).
India also has over 100 Israeli-origin UAVs, from Heron and Searcher-II surveillance and precision-targeting drones to Harop "killer" drones. The Indian armed forces have also inducted several kinds of Israeli missiles, ranging from Spyder quick-reaction anti-aircraft missiles, Python and Derby air-to-air missiles to Crystal Maze and Spice-2000 precision-guided munitions.