For many years, the fundamental equation in Israeli-Indian protection relations was simple. Israel had the navy know-how, experience, and weapons that India wished, and India had one of many world’s largest protection markets.
In 2026, nonetheless, that equation is altering.
A brand new 42-page investigation by Amnesty Worldwide, Made in India: The Provide of Weapons and Ammunition to Israel, argues that Indian weapons exports to Israel may expose New Delhi and Indian corporations to duty for alleged violations of worldwide regulation in Gaza.
Nevertheless, inside its cargo information, company constructions, and descriptions of artillery elements, machine-gun parts, and drone warheads, there’s additionally an in depth image of how far the bilateral protection relationship has come.
India is more and more manufacturing for Israel, supplying Israeli corporations, collectively creating techniques with them and embedding Indian factories inside worldwide protection provide chains. A relationship as soon as dominated by Israeli exports to India has turn out to be considerably extra reciprocal.
For Dr. Oshrit Birvadker, senior nationwide safety knowledgeable, director of the South and East Asia Middle on the Jerusalem Institute for Technique and Safety, and CEO of Indivade, this can be a strategic shift that Israel itself was sluggish to grasp.
“I’ve extreme reservations concerning the validity of this report,” Birvadker informed The Jerusalem Submit. “Even Amnesty acknowledges the boundaries of its personal findings, admitting an lack of ability to confirm the end-use of the shipments in query. From my perspective, the empirical knowledge offered right here demonstrates just one clear actuality – Israel and India preserve a official protection and business partnership between two democracies.”
That partnership, nonetheless, is altering in character.
“For years, protection contractors and policymakers favored sustaining the established order, treating India primarily as a purchaser,” Birvadker acknowledged. Whereas Israeli corporations entered joint ventures in India, she stated, a lot of that course of was pushed by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ‘Make in India’ coverage relatively than by any Israeli imaginative and prescient of India as a future provide base.
October 7 and the following years of struggle and worldwide stress that adopted modified the calculation, she argued.
“It took an occasion of apocalyptic proportions coupled with rising worldwide isolation, arms embargoes, and cargo delays from Israel’s closest ally, for the Israeli protection institution to totally acknowledge India’s strategic weight,” Birvadker stated.
“Two years later, that shift is underway. The protection institution now indicators main MOUs and acknowledges India as a vital pillar of Israel’s safety doctrine, realizing that ‘Make in India’ gives the required scale and fast supply pipelines required for Israel’s long-term safety.”
What Amnesty discovered: 1000’s of shipments from India to Israel
Amnesty’s investigation is substantial in scale. Utilizing commercially accessible shipment-level commerce knowledge, researchers examined exports between October 7, 2023, and November 30, 2025, underneath customs classes masking weapons, ammunition and armored autos. In complete, Amnesty recognized 2,596 shipments from India to Israel.
The group says these shipments included not less than 390,516 elements for military-grade small arms, 564,970 elements of explosive ordnance – together with artillery-shell parts and drone warheads – and 298 military-vehicle parts.
Amnesty described these numbers as conservative. It intentionally excluded shipments for which it couldn’t distinguish civilian from navy use and eliminated merchandise that appeared prone to be destined for anti-missile protection techniques.
Of the two,596 shipments examined, Amnesty stated it may decide that not less than 788 contained objects with navy makes use of, excluding gear supposed solely for air protection. One other 1,838 shipments fell inside a customs class for pistol and handgun elements, the place civilian and navy purposes can overlap. Of 354 shipments categorised particularly as elements for navy weapons, 39 concerned interceptor parts for Rafael missile-defense techniques, which Amnesty excluded from its offensive-weapons depend.
Amnesty additionally acknowledged that shipment-level knowledge can’t in each case set up the ultimate end-user or show that an merchandise was transferred on to the IDF relatively than an Israeli protection firm or subsequently re-exported.
Birvadker argued that this distinction is essential when evaluating the conclusions Amnesty attracts from the info.
“The report presents no proof of intent or official coverage by India to facilitate illegal fight operations or human rights violations,” she informed the Submit. “Deducting complicity in genocide from routine maritime delivery logs represents an unfounded analytical leap, suggesting a predetermined agenda.”
Amnesty, nonetheless, says the character of among the merchandise and their recipients establishes a a lot clearer navy connection.
Its report names PLR Programs, a three way partnership between India’s Adani Group and Israel Weapon Industries (IWI), as an exporter of parts for IWI’s Negev machine gun. Amnesty recognized 10,571 feeding-tray parts and 33,033 bolt carriers and associated assemblies exported by PLR to IWI through the interval examined.
The report says producer Indo-MIM exported greater than 59,600 automated sears – parts enabling automated fireplace – to IWI, with one other two shipments measured by weight relatively than particular person items. It recorded 1,273 Indo-MIM shipments of weapons elements to Israel after October 7, though Amnesty categorised solely 54 as demonstrably navy as a result of many parts can serve each civilian and navy weapons.
Additional up the weapons chain, Kalyani Strategic Programs, a part of the Bharat Forge Group, allegedly exported 9,600 our bodies for 155mm artillery rounds, whereas the state-owned Munitions India Restricted despatched a cargo of 1,000 completed 155mm high-explosive shells to Elbit Programs, in accordance with the commerce knowledge Amnesty reviewed.
Amnesty additionally recognized a December 2025 cargo by Alpha Elsec Defence & Aerospace Programs – a three way partnership involving Elbit – of 122 five-kilogram warhead assemblies. The group linked that specification to Elbit’s SkyStriker loitering munition, examples of which have been recognized amongst particles in Gaza.
These are the transactions on which Amnesty builds its accusation that Indian corporations have turn out to be a part of the provision infrastructure supporting Israeli navy operations. Additionally they illustrate exactly why the connection is so essential to each nations.
INDIA AND ISRAEL solely established full diplomatic relations in 1992, and protection ties initially adopted the standard exporter-client mannequin. Israel turned notably essential to India after the 1999 Kargil Battle with Pakistan.
Over time, nonetheless, New Delhi started insisting that international protection corporations do extra inside India itself.
The enlargement of the “Make in India” coverage, launched in 2014, underneath Modi accelerated home manufacturing, joint ventures and know-how switch. The Adani-Elbit partnership established what Amnesty describes as India’s first non-public military-drone manufacturing manufacturing facility, whereas maybe essentially the most distinguished instance of bilateral improvement is the Barak-8 air-defense system, collectively developed by Israel Aerospace Industries and India’s Protection Analysis and Improvement Group.
This transformation varieties a part of a a lot wider Indian technique. New Delhi has set 2047, the centenary of independence, because the horizon for its ambition to turn out to be a developed and considerably extra self-reliant international energy, with home manufacturing, technological functionality and exports central to that venture. Protection is more and more being handled as a part of the identical nationwide effort.
Indian protection exports reached $4 billion (390 billion rupees) within the monetary 12 months 2025, whereas New Delhi is more and more in search of future weapons procurements on phrases that embody know-how switch and larger Indian management over avionics, electronics and steerage techniques. The Jerusalem Submit was invited to go to India this 12 months and witness firsthand its protection sector in motion. But its protection manufacturing and modernization stay uneven, with continued dependence on international know-how in essential areas and the persistent strategic problem of getting ready for doable battle with each Pakistan and China.
That mixture, quickly rising industrial functionality alongside persevering with technological necessities, is the place Israel turns into notably precious.
Birvadker stated India has moved past manufacturing solely for its personal armed forces and is explicitly in search of a spot among the many world’s main protection exporters.
“This sharp trajectory displays rising international acceptance of Indian manufactured protection techniques and the nation’s seamless integration into worldwide provide chains,” Birvadker defined. “Through the years, New Delhi has aggressively pursued the manufacturing of every part from small arms and drones to fighter jets and submarines, both independently or by means of strategic international partnerships.
“This partnership with Israel is especially important,” she acknowledged. “Not like conventional protection suppliers that resist know-how switch, Israeli corporations display a excessive willingness to spend money on joint analysis and improvement, an element vital to India’s protection sector development, as finest exemplified by the Barak 8 air protection system. Moreover, Israeli corporations are more and more outsourcing the manufacturing of sub-components to Indian suppliers, elevating industrial requirements throughout the broader Indian market.”
There may be one other profit that’s tougher to quantify.
“In the end, having the IDF, which is broadly considered one of many world’s most technologically superior militaries, deploy Indian-manufactured techniques serves as a robust seal of high quality that reinforces international market confidence,” Birvadker stated.
“Within the context of lively fight, real-time operational deployment additionally gives invaluable field-tested suggestions to refine and validate these capabilities.”
For Israel, in the meantime, Indian manufacturing presents value benefits and, more and more, supply-chain resilience.
Western governments have turn out to be extra politically divided over protection exports to Israel. Amnesty’s report itself cites restrictions or suspensions imposed in elements of Europe and argues that India continued increasing cooperation throughout the identical interval.
Birvadker believes that makes India an more and more precious different manufacturing base.
“Serving as a vital different to Europe in manufacturing and ammunition, particularly amid export restrictions and overt or quiet arms embargoes by European nations, India has emerged as a vital industrial fallback,” she stated.
There are limits, nonetheless. India can’t change Washington in areas similar to fighter plane, heavy precision-guided munitions or direct strategic navy help, she confused, however the rising two-way stream of weapons, parts, know-how and capital means the connection is more and more certainly one of “mutual interdependence relatively than unilateral dependence,” Birvadker stated.
AMNESTY IS asking New Delhi to go significantly additional than imposing further checks on exports.
It known as for an instantaneous halt to arms transfers to Israel and a complete embargo masking weapons, parts, applied sciences, technical help and coaching. It additionally advisable that Indian corporations terminate enterprise relationships, together with joint analysis and improvement, with Elbit Programs, Rafael and Israel Aerospace Industries.
“Israeli techniques at present kind the technological spine of India’s safety structure alongside its delicate borders with China and Pakistan,” Birvadker informed the Submit, on what doable penalties implementation would have for India’s personal navy.
“Firms like Elbit, Rafael, and IAI usually are not normal import suppliers,” she stated. “They’re India’s premier companions in constructing a home protection trade.”
Birvadker went additional, arguing that severing the connection may set again India’s goal of technological self-reliance “by many years.”
“India would as soon as once more discover itself depending on different international powers, a resurgence of protection colonialism,” Bivadker acknowledged. “Who advantages from such an end result?”
The authorized argument: The controversy lies in what is just not publicly seen
Amnesty’s problem can also be directed at India’s export-control system itself.
India is just not a celebration to the Arms Commerce Treaty, though it’s a get together to the Geneva Conventions and Genocide Conference. Amnesty argues that these current obligations are ample to require India to halt transfers the place there’s a clear danger that weapons may contribute to critical violations.
Indian arms exports usually are not unregulated. Army and dual-use items are managed by means of the SCOMET system and require authorization from the Directorate Common of Overseas Commerce. Purposes are reviewed by means of an inter-ministerial course of involving the international, protection, and residential ministries, and official tips require consideration of the tip consumer, declared finish use, chain of transmission, and whether or not an export may battle with Indian nationwide safety or international coverage.
The controversy, in accordance with Amnesty, lies in what is just not publicly seen.
The inter-ministerial deliberations are confidential, leaving no public report displaying whether or not worldwide humanitarian regulation or India’s treaty obligations have been particularly assessed when licenses for exports to Israel have been permitted.
Amnesty filed a Proper to Data request in search of particulars of particular export licenses and any human rights assessments undertaken by the federal government, however stated it had acquired no reply earlier than publication.
Birvadker’s place is that New Delhi ought to resist exterior stress relatively than enable NGOs to find out its strategic relationships.
“New Delhi should categorically reject the stress to droop protection exports, fiercely guarding its precept of strategic autonomy and its sovereign proper to conduct relations in alignment with its nationwide pursuits,” she stated.
“Yielding to Amnesty’s calls for would severely undermine India’s credibility as a dependable protection companion on the worldwide stage,” she informed the Submit.
India’s idea of strategic autonomy predates the Israel controversy. It was seen, for instance, when New Delhi resisted Western stress over Russian oil purchases following the invasion of Ukraine, prioritizing power safety and its freedom to take care of relationships throughout competing geopolitical blocs.
The connection with Israel more and more suits into that very same mannequin. India stays a significant purchaser of Israeli know-how whereas turning into a provider in its personal proper. Israeli corporations achieve an infinite manufacturing base and entry to Indian trade; India acquires know-how, home manufacturing and publicity to international protection markets. The larger the combination, the tougher it turns into to explain the partnership merely as one nation promoting weapons to a different.
That’s one other revealing side of Amnesty’s report. Its authors see the tons of of hundreds of Indian-made parts flowing to Israeli corporations as proof that the connection needs to be curtailed. Birvadker cites the identical provide chains as proof that the connection has turn out to be strategically indispensable.
The argument over Gaza will stay bitter and unresolved, notably when the cost of genocide is handled as settled regardless of the substantial authorized arguments towards it. The economic shift beneath that debate, nonetheless, is already taking form.
India is now not merely shopping for Israeli weapons. More and more, a few of Israel’s weapons start their journey in India.
